


Encore

by athena_crikey



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, Episode Related, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-16
Updated: 2013-12-01
Packaged: 2017-12-29 13:48:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1006168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athena_crikey/pseuds/athena_crikey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This time, they don't have Morse to solve the riddle. This time, Morse doesn't have them for back up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Fugue really seemed to me like an episode that needed just a bit more baking around Gull and his interest in Morse. The Pilot, although not in need of any more baking, has so much left to offer in salty, repercussiony goodness. Both will feature heavily.

The first thing Thursday notices when he gets into the office is Morse’s empty coat peg. It’s a tiny detail in the face of Morse’s empty desk, but there are plenty of tasks that might take the DC elsewhere in the building. No coat on a cold spring morning means no Morse, and Thursday’s never yet beaten his on-again off-again bagman to the office. 

Thursday glances at Strange, seated behind his own desk with a file open in his hands but his eyes on Thursday, and nods towards the unoccupied desk: “Morse ill, then?”

Strange shakes his head. “Don’t know, sir. He hasn’t rung.”

Thursday looks to the empty coat peg again, then the clock overhead. 8:25. “Give him another fifteen minutes, then ring around. Who knows, maybe he’s having a lie-in.”

Behind him, Jakes snorts quietly. Thursday ignores it, but the facts behind Jakes’ scepticism are real enough. Morse opens and closes this office most days, and he’s not one for self-indulgence. 

Raising alarm because a man isn’t early to work is ludicrous, though, and Thursday forces himself to believe as much as he starts his own day’s work. Checking through the overtime chitty, Thursday tells himself there are a hundred perfectly reasonable explanations for Morse being later than usual – a hundred things that could bring him to walk through the CID door any minute now, rather than fifteen minutes ago as usual.

But at 8:45, Strange is standing firmly planted in his doorway, shaking his head. “No answer, sir.”

“He didn’t say anything to you last night?” It’s a wasted question. If he had, Strange would have reported it immediately; the new sergeant doesn’t have Morse’s sparking brilliance, but he has his own steady glow of perception and deduction. 

As expected, Strange shakes his head again. “Nothing, sir. We didn’t go out last night – laundry night for him. He seemed the same as always when I left.” 

Thursday nods; it agrees with his own recollection. In his mind’s eye Morse wishes him a good night, his face all sharp curves and shadows in the strong light cast by his desk lamp, just as he’s done a hundred times before. “We’ll give him ‘til nine to make fools of us,” he says, with a forced smile. Strange doesn’t return it; he uproots himself silently and drifts out of sight. 

At nine o’clock, Morse’s coat peg is still empty. Thursday glances at it as he tells Jakes to fetch the car, before ducking back into his office to pocket the spare set of keys to Morse’s flat. They’re still in the same unmarked, dusty box they’ve been in since Morse gave them to him after the business with Vic Kasper and Mrs. Coke-Norris. “In case I fall in the shower,” he said with a wry smile when he handed them over, but Thursday heard “In case of Mickey Carter,” and didn’t smile back.

Jakes says nothing on the short drive to Morse’s building: an unusual show of self-restraint, considering Jakes usually has none where Morse is concerned. He confines his comment to an upturned lip at the sight of the sloped and cracking stone slabs leading up to the building door. The first key on the ring gains them access to a narrow stairway; at the top of it Thursday knocks on the door on the left. No answer.

The second key grants them entrance to Morse’s flat, the old lock needing some cajoling before reluctantly turning under Thursday’s hand. The doorway opens right into the side of a bookcase; Thursday stares at it for an instant before throwing the door open wider and stepping around it. Awkward at first sight, but doubtless upon examination well-reasoned and practical – like man, like home. 

Jakes follows and closes the door as Thursday drifts into the open sitting room while examining the walls – kitchen to the left, bedroom and bath to the right. The bookcase, indeed placed against the only wall space big enough for it, is crammed tight with books, records and a turntable. On the other wall a heavy cabinet serves as closet stands close beside a fireplace, Morse’s rain coat hanging from its door.

“Doesn’t go in for high living, does he?” comments Jakes, critical eye skating over the card table and single crooked chair, then up to the kitchen implements stored in cheap bowls on top of a cabinet. 

Thursday ignores him and strides into the bedroom; Morse’s single bed is unmade, the sheets and pillow rumpled – it’s been slept in. A wardrobe stands at its foot, heavy and ancient with a crooked floor. The inside is divided into an open top and drawers on the bottom. On the top are Morse’s two work suits, hung haphazardly on their hangers, a handful of wrinkled shirts and an ancient blazer. The top of the drawers below is partly open, rolls of socks peeking out through the crack. 

In the other room, Thursday hears Jakes open the bathroom door and make a noise of disgust, doubtless unimpressed by either Morse’s toiletries or his hygiene. He sighs and turns his back to the wardrobe, glancing again around the gloomy bedroom. No pictures or photos on the faded walls, only books for company. A pile of them are stacked beside Morse’s bed, towering over his wristwatch.

Thursday stops, frowning. The morning light, filtering in through threadbare curtains, is playing oddly off the watch’s face. He crosses the creaking floor with slow steps, chest tightening. The glass of the watch is broken, smashed to pieces with slivers lying on the table beside it, while the now-naked hands have stopped at 6:00. Underneath the ruined watch sits a folded piece of yellowing paper. Thursday reaches out slowly and slips it free, tipping shards of glass onto the table before unfolding it.

It’s a scrap of musical composition paper, crossed with mostly-unfilled musical staffs. Written in thick, red ink over the centre line of two of the staffs are a series of dots and dashes:

••---   ••••-       ••••   ---   ••-   •-•   •••  
••-   -•       -•••   •   •-••        -••   ••

Thursday’s eyes flash to the wardrobe – still holding Morse’s clothes – and to the coat hanging in the living room. 

“Jakes!” He storms out into the main room, scanning the table, walls, and shelves before settling on the mantelpiece over the fireplace. On it sit Morse’s wallet and keys.

He didn’t come in because he never left his flat. Not by his own choice.

Thursday turns at the sound of footsteps and sees Jakes pull up at the look on his face, the question dying on his lips as he follows Thursday’s gesture and sees the mantle. 

“Where’s his phone?” demands Thursday.

“In the kitchen.” Jakes tears his eyes away from Morse’s effects and points. 

Thursday strides in and jerks the receiver free from its cradle, dials through straight to Strange’s desk and hears the sergeant answer on the second ring. “Strange? Ring through to Broadmoor. Make them find Mason Gull, find and verify his identity. Do it now.” He slams it down again before Strange can question him.

Turning to see Jakes staring at him, Thursday unfolds the note and holds it up. The paper is shivering in his grip, and he realises that it’s because his hand is shaking. 

“Bloody hell,” whispers Jakes.

END PROLOGUE.


	2. Un Bel Di

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I’ve set them a riddle, plain as plain. You know the solution. Tell me: will they solve it?”

Bright’s office is one of the coldest rooms in the station. The old building is draughty as hell when there’s any kind of wind up, and the corner office combines two sets of windows with an ancient fireplace whose flue lets the cold in constantly. The steam radiators, rattling away ceaselessly under the windows, offer no competition at all. Crisp had taken a smaller office rather than deal with the perpetual chill and noise, but that’s not Bright’s way.

Thursday stands in the middle of the wood-panelled room, just close enough to the fireplace that he can feel the soft breeze rolling across his ankles. Bright sits at his desk with an unlit cigarette between his fingers, knocking it unconsciously against the edge of the oak desk, his lined face pale and strained.

“And you’re sure it’s him, Thursday?” 

Thursday keeps his gaze level and even, his tone just the same. “Can’t be sure until we hear back from Broadmoor, sir. But it’s just like one of his little games – down to the ink and score. Jakes is getting the Morse read now and I’ve got Strange lining up a local opera expert, just in case.”

“But – why Morse? Constable Morse, I mean,” Bright clarifies with an irritated wave of his hand. 

“He was the one who played Gull’s game, sir. The only one who could. Gull knew that.” 

A phrase of Morse’s comes back to him from that one frantic night spent trying to solve the puzzle that would find Debbie Snow: _If I can’t solve it, the snow maiden melts_. Morse had – but only Morse. Solving Gull’s word games without him may not be possible. Only that’s not an option: whatever Gull’s method this time, the consequences of failure are certain.

A knock on the door cuts through his thoughts. Thursday turns to watch Strange enter, a piece of paper in his hand. “Sorry to interrupt, sir. Broadmoor just rang back. According to them Mason Gull was killed two days ago in an escape attempt. He made it off the premises, but was struck and killed on a railway line. They identified him preliminarily by his clothes; the body was pretty torn up, apparently. The post mortem’s still pending.” 

“But that means,” begins Bright, but Strange cuts in before he can finish. Thursday doesn’t have the attention to spare to identify whether it’s impatience or an effort to avoid Bright misreading the evidence.

“Begging your pardon, sir. I asked them to perform the post mortem immediately. They’ve put a priority on it – should be complete in a couple of hours.”

“Just like Daniel Cronyn, a falsified death to buy time,” says Thursday, and then catches Strange’s eye. “Get Gull’s most recent description and pass it out to all cars and patrols. And get on to DeBryn – I want him there to witness the post mortem.”

“Yes, sir. Jakes has already called Morse’s description through. Nothing so far. And we’ve got a patrol going door-to-door on his block.”

Thursday nods his approval, and Strange hurries out. “I should get back, sir,” suggests Thursday, shifting his weight against the chill settling in his feet. 

Bright knocks his cigarette against the desk again. “Yes, yes, quite right. You’ll have the men you need, Thursday. We can’t have this madman getting the better of us. I shall notify the Chief Constable. If you need more bodies, we will arrange it.”

“I’m afraid what we’ll need is more brains, sir,” says Thursday, grimly, on the way out. He doesn’t wait to hear Bright’s reply.

\-----------------------------------------------

Thursday returns to the main CID office to find that someone has already taped pictures and a timeline of Mason Gull’s history to the glass partition. On the left is a snap of Gull as a young man, and then again after his recent Oxford arrest for the murders of Evelyn Balfour, Grace Madison, Ben Nimmo and Daniel Cronyn. The timeline gives these details, as well as a brief history of his multiple hospitalizations in mental institutions – first at Bellevue, later Broadmoor.

On the right is Morse’s file photo, as well as his address, a copy of the message left by Gull, and “6:00” underlined. An utterly inadequate summary of a man’s life.

Stacked in a neat pile on Morse’s desk is his collection of LPs and his turn table, a rather more colourful summary, and one which they may need to find him.

Jakes is just hanging up the phone as Thursday enters silently; he surges to his feet, and then draws up awkwardly when he sees Thursday standing just behind him. “Just got this from a local radio station, sir.” He hands a scrap of paper to Thursday, two short lines scrawled in pencil.

_24 hours  
Un bel di_

“I was able to find someone down at Alfredo’s college who knows a fair bit about opera, sir. He’s one of the senior members from Morse’s choir,” says Strange, from behind Thursday’s shoulder. At some point he drifted over to read the message without the inspector noticing. Thursday doesn’t pay him much mind now, either. He’s still staring at the clue. 

“Should I ring him up, sir?” prompts Strange.

Thursday looks up, face grim. “No – no. This, I know.” He can even remember the tune. That, and the emotion ringing in the throat of the murderess who sang it. 

“Thought you didn’t go in for opera, sir,” says Jakes, surprised.

“I don’t. It came up in connection with a case. It’s from Madame Butterfly – the opera’s about a Japanese girl who marries a foreigner. He’s just looking for some fun, but she’s in love: when he goes home to America, she waits for his return faithfully. He finally does come back, some years later, but it’s with an American wife. The girl realises he never loved her – that she was deluded the whole time – and kills herself. One Beautiful Day,” he motions to the paper in Jakes’ hand, “is the most famous song from the opera. It was also what Rosalind Stromming was singing when we arrested her.”

“Stromming?” asks Jakes, frowning. “Wasn’t she the one who killed that girl – Trebbit? Tanner?”

“Tremlett. And her boyfriend. Yes. Her husband was having an affair with Mary Tremlett. It was Morse’s first case here. Stromming had been an opera singer before she married; Morse set great store by her.” A long, complex, painful story summed up in a few simple sentences. Thursday’s memories are far sharper and more visceral: Mary Tremlett’s naked body on the autopsy table; an envelope full of pornography victimizing the daughters of men Thursday knew; Rosalind Stromming’s pale ankles hanging a foot off the cell floor; Morse’s choked sobs being soaked up by heavy stone walls.

A twisted, ugly, case that had left its mark on the whole station. 

“Here, sir.” Strange pulls a thin record jacket from the stack and holds it up – a pale yellow with a sepia photograph of a woman Thursday vaguely recognizes. “Says Calloway, though.”

“Maiden name,” answers Thursday, absently.

“And look, sir.” Strange indicates an inscription in black marker. _To Morse, un bel di. Rosalind Calloway._ “Just like the note.”

Jakes lights a cigarette and uses it to indicate the LP jacket in Strange’s hands. “The girl does for herself at the end. Does that mean he’s going to – to kill Morse in the same way?” He glances cautiously at Thursday as he speaks, tone circumspect rather than straightforward, putting on what for Jakes counts as kid gloves. Thursday gives no reaction.

Strange replaces it carefully on the top of the stack, then looks up, having missed the unspoken manoeuvering. “Or does he mean the connection is to the Stromming woman? Hanged herself in the cells, didn’t she?” Unlike Jakes, as a genuine friend of Morse it clearly doesn’t occur to him to foreplay his concern. 

Thursday looks back to the note in his hand, the paper already crumpled in his inattentive grip. “Whatever it means, we’ve only got 24 hours. The watch gives the time. 6 o’clock.”

“Morning or evening?” asks Strange, immediately.

Thursday closes his eyes, bringing back the memory of Morse’s flat – the closed curtains and rumpled bed clothes. “Morning,” he says. “He can hardly have left here before six yesterday evening, and his bed was slept in. That’s,” he checks his own watch, “20 hours from now.”

No one says what they must all be thinking: It’s not enough time.

Thursday puts the piece of paper down on Jakes’ desk, and gathers his thoughts. “Alright. Jakes, you’re on the search. Have all of Gull’s former locations checked – Cronyn’s rooms, that farm house, the coaching inn. Coordinate reports from the patrols. Strange, you get the full summary of the opera from your expert; maybe I’m forgetting something. All the details, mind. I’ll take the Stromming angle.

The two sergeants nod and hurry to their desks. Thursday, still in his coat, pauses in the doorway, “And see that the phone’s not left alone – he called Morse before. He may again.”

Something catches his eye through the glass of the CID door; Thursday looks to see a constable heading towards him pushing a metal cart holding boxes of files. Thursday turns and exists before he can impede the constable’s entrance. As he passes he glances down at the boxes; beneath the file numbers and dates is written _Mason Gull._

\------------------------------------------------------

For a minute, Morse thinks he’s fallen asleep reading. There’s a crick in his neck and, as he blinks into consciousness, the soft rustling of a page being turned. Then real awareness arrives, bringing with it first confusion and, a heartbeat later, panic. 

Sitting four feet away from him at the head of a narrow bed is Mason Gull.

Morse tries to shout and leap to his feet – both attempts fail. His mouth is plastered shut, turning his cry into a wordless moan. His hands and feet are tied into a chair, which thumps once at his sudden burst of movement but doesn’t give. Morse yanks his hands desperately against their bonds and finds them handcuffed behind him; the metal slams painfully into his bones as he pulls with all his force, skin numbing temporarily under the fierce onslaught. Nothing yields.

Then the fit of terror and panic is past, leaving him panting deeply for breath through his nose, his wrists and chest burning. Morse forces himself to look up even as he desperate need to breathe bows his back; his hair falls forwards to tickle his eyebrows, a bead of sweat trickles down the bridge of his nose and slips stingingly into his eye.

On the bed, Mason Gull closes his book and sets it down beside him. He has a bowl of peanuts at his elbow, Morse notices, and a tumbler of what might be scotch on the bedside table.

“So nice to be recognized,” he says, with a shark’s grin. 

Gull has lost weight in the past six months, his round face grown more angular, his shoulders and chest slimmed down from the comfortable padding of a man who indulges himself to the sharper lines of one without that luxury. His hair, no longer styled in a facsimile of Daniel Cronyn’s, has grown longer but failed to fill out. It hangs shaggily around his face, thin and badly cut. 

Morse straightens up slowly, still shaking with the force of each breath. His mouth is sealed by some kind of tape, he finds, thick and heavy and impossible to peel his skin away from without his hands. He takes stock as he regains his control, finds that he’s in the clothes he wore to bed – loose flannel pyjama bottoms and an undershirt, arms and feet bare. There’s a dull pain in his left bicep, and he glances at it and sees the angry red mark of an injection. Gull’s been playing doctor again, evidently. He represses the shudder at the memory of Daniel Cronyn’s filthy bed, and the bloody handcuffs chained to its headboard.

Gull is still watching him with a smile on his lips. Morse refuses to give Gull the satisfaction of seeing him try to speak, instead merely glares. 

Gull’s smile widens into an amused chuckle at the sight of his voiceless anger. “Yes, it is rather rude of me, isn’t it – to invite you for a meeting and refuse to surrender the floor? Never fear: you’ll have your chance. I simply wished to take this opportunity to… lay the groundwork for our conversation, if you will.” Gull slips his legs off the edge of the bed and leans forward to address Morse face-to-face.

“You see, I’ve been thinking,” he says, conversationally, as if discussing an idea for a weekend holiday. “Not an awful lot else do where I was, after all. And I realised: I was really rather selfish the last time we met. All me, me, me. Revenge for the past, the – admittedly deserved – deaths of those who acted against me. I was so focused on my plans that I failed to recognize the truly unique gift that had been handed to me: you.”

Morse pulls back, stiffening against his restraints. The seat of the chair creaks softly, but nothing gives. Gull misinterprets his shock as incredulity, and waves it away.

“Oh, I improvised of course, threw in a few little games to test you when I realised there was a mind equal to them. But I failed to truly appreciate what you represented.” He pauses, leaning in: “A compatriot.” 

Morse blinks, instinctively trying to open his mouth and then clenching his jaw in frustration. Gull slaps his shoulder, accepting his reaction as agreement. 

“Yes, it was a major lapse, one the past six months have allowed me to fully understand. I cast you as biographer, recorder – Beethoven’s Schindler – when I ought to have made you a partner, an equal – the Belsky to my Rimsky-Korsakov. You have the brilliance, the drive. I can help you realise that.” He stands abruptly, and, stepping over, drapes his arm across Morse’s shoulders. He’s so close Morse can feel the heat of his breath on his cheek, so close he can smell him: sweat and must and, faintly, blood. Morse jerks his head away.

“Don’t be like that. I’m doing you more of a favour than you know – more than you can recognize. Right now, you’re like a sleepwalker, wandering blindly through the world. You’re blind to the potential, the vast possibilities it holds. But I can wake you. I can show you the world for what it really is.” Gull stands and spreads his arms as if to conduct his vision.

“You live your life like a man among dogs, at best irritated by their stupidity, at worst resented and betrayed by them. How many of them could have found Debbie Snow? Which of them were with you in the Bodleian? You know the answer as well as I do: none. Stay with them – stay a man at the beck and call of fools, a man with the support of idiots – and you cause frustration, grief, harm. To yourself and to them.” 

Morse snorts and shakes his head. Gull drops an arm to dig into the pocket of his trousers. “Don’t believe me? I can prove it to you – I _will_ prove it. I’ve set them a riddle, plain as plain. You know the solution. Tell me: will they solve it?”

He pulls a scrap of paper from his pocket and unfolds it, holds it up for Morse to see. It’s two lines of Morse code, two sentence fragments. Morse’s eyes scan across it quickly; a childhood burdened with his last name taught him to read the dots and dashes long ago. _24 hours. Un bel di._

Morse looks up and around, takes in his surroundings again with more attention and recognizes them for what they are. They’re the same as he remembers – with one ominous exception. A folding screen now stands behind him, the panels a plain white that has been turned to a soft grey by accumulated dust. 

“Well?” repeats Gull, still superior, still amused. “Will they solve it?”

Morse turns back to Gull and meets his eyes, forcing steadiness and confidence into his face as he nods. 

“Very good,” praises Gull in a saccharine condescension. “Now try it again like you believe it.” 

He rips the paper in half and drops it, then leans down to stare at Morse, his amusement phasing into malevolent anticipation. “Their timeline’s also yours, Morse. You have until six o’clock to wake up and see the world for what it is – to grasp your true potential. Otherwise… well, you know the line.” he nods to the screen behind Morse.

Morse does: _Those who cannot live with honour must die with it._ He swallows, throat painfully dry.

Gull straightens, tapping his temple. “Something to think about.” He winks as he turns, and then he’s walking out, shutting the door behind him.

Morse squeezes his eyes tightly shut, jaw clenched tight, and tries to think.

END CHAPTER 1


	3. King of Kings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’ll have to be matches until Morse is back – partially a necessity, partially a promise.

It’s a clear, crisp day, the sky still the pale watercolour blue of winter. The air has warmed up enough since the morning drive to the office that the car’s exhaust is no longer visible, but when Thursday turns off the engine and steps out he feels the cold teeth in the breeze before the sun’s weak touch on his cheek.

Stromming’s house looks different than he remembers from the two brief visits he made following Rosalind Stromming’s suicide. As he nears the door he realises it’s because the house’s trim has all been repainted recently in bright white. He leans in to examine the wood as he knocks, noting the careful brush works on the doorframe – probably a hired painter.

The woman who opens the door is a blonde, middle-aged, middle-class housewife; Thursday’s surprised glance also tells him she smokes, wears glasses although isn’t currently, and has a generous clothes budget. She gives him the closed stare of someone greeting a salesman.

“Yes?”

“I’m looking for Dr Stromming,” he says, puzzled. Although he’s known widowers to marry again in six months, Thursday has rarely seen men as wrecked as Stromming was in the immediate wake of the Tremlett case.

The woman’s face clears, and she nods. “He’s been gone about four months, now. Sold the house to us last November. I have his address; just a moment.” She disappears inside, leaving the door open, and returns only a minute later with a black address book which she leafs through. “Yes, here it is. Do you need his telephone number as well?”

Thursday nods. “Just to be certain.” He pulls out his notebook and jots down the address and number, thanking her politely. He leaves as soon as his book’s closed. 

Stromming’s new address is out of town in Old Marston. Like his prior house, this one too is out of sight of the road, hidden away behind an old stone wall overgrown with shrubs and creepers. Thursday leaves his car parked in the road and enters the drive on foot, gravel crunching under his shoes. 

The house is ancient, small and stone with narrow windows and a tightly fitting roof. It reminds Thursday of old moor homes: lonely, gloomy and dark. A thick yew tree stands at the far end of the house; over the decades it’s grown so tall as to overshadow the building, slowly expanding over the walls and roof as if trying to swallow it up. On the other side of the drive a small garden patch is tucked haphazardly in the lee of the stone surrounding wall. Some winter vegetables have struggled through the lumpy earth only to sit abandoned, slowly going to seed. 

The door rattles on loose hinges when Thursday knocks. He waits for almost half a minute before the lock clicks and it swings open. 

Dr Stromming isn’t the stereotype of a man who has given up. He is clean shaven and his hair is well cared for, his clothes neat and his back straight. But there is no interest at all in the eyes that meet Thursday’s, no curiosity at receiving an unexpected caller, no apprehension at finding it to be Thursday. 

“Yes?” he says, flatly. 

“I would like to talk to you, Dr Stromming. It’s in regards to a current case.”

Stromming considers him for a moment, then shrugs. “If you must.” He turns and walks back inside house, leaving Thursday to close the door and follow. 

The entranceway is set in the middle of a small lounge furnished with a sofa, coffee table and desk to the right; to the left is an open kitchen and dining table. A door in the far wall presumably leads to the bedroom and facilities. 

Like the desks of most dons, Stromming’s is a mess of books and paper. The rest of the house shows no trace of academe, however, none of the statues Morse described from his Oxford rooms, no bookcases or framed certificates. Stromming jerks the light armchair in front of the desk around to face the sofa and sits down silently, waiting; Thursday takes a seat on the sofa.

“I would like to know whether you’ve had anyone making inquiries about your wife’s death recently, Dr Stromming. Or perhaps about Mary Tremlett,” he says, removing his hat and setting it down on the faded upholstery beside him.

“Define recently,” requests Stromming. There’s no sarcasm or reproach in his tone, merely the plain inquiry of an academic clarifying a research question.

“In the past two days.”

Stromming blinks once, surprised, although still not apparently curious. “No.”

“What about last November? It would have been about the time you moved houses,” adds Thursday, as a reference. Stromming shrugs and crosses his legs slowly as he considers.

“Maybe. The… case was much newer then. I received my share of solicitations from the gutter press, as well as from a few sensationalist authors.” The scorn that creeps into his tone is closer to instinctive snobbery than distaste. He asks for no clarification, though, no reason for Thursday’s questions.

“Did you provide information to any of them?”

Stromming looks him in the eye as he answers; there is still no reaction or interest there. “No.”

Thursday glances around the room again, looking for something in which to anchor his line of questioning, something that still resonates for Stromming. From here he can see that the papers covering the desk are mostly administrative; a few look like they may be academic papers, and have been gone over heavily with pen. The small sitting area is undecorated, walls and mantle empty and coffee table bear. It speaks to Thursday less of a Spartan taste than emptiness, a void of either objects or interests, or both.

Having found no help from his surroundings, Thursday tries a new tact, leans forwards and opens his posture by resting his arms on his thighs. “Have you heard of Mason Gull, doctor?” he asks in an earnest voice.

“I don’t believe so.” 

“He was very much in the news last November. The Opera Phantom, some of the papers started calling him.”

Far from imitating Thursday’s posture, Stromming straightens in his chair. He brings his hands together to make a chapel from his fingers and considers Thursday levelly from over their tops. “I wasn’t following the papers very much at the time. The pseudonym is vaguely familiar.”

“He murdered four people, doctor, and attempted to murder a fifth, using elaborate staging and games related to opera. We believe he may be targeting a member of the police force in some kind of revenge for his apprehension. DC Morse,” says Thursday, laying his cards on the table. 

Stromming watches him for several seconds, his hands rising and falling with each breath. There is no fear in his eyes, but no satisfaction either. Nothing, in fact, other than a flat mask of politeness. “Do you suspect me of being involved?”

Thursday raises his eyebrows. “Are you?”

“No,” says Stromming, simply. Then, elaborating, “I don’t bear constable Morse any ill will. He wasn’t at fault.” He says it with the air of a man who has repeated painful words so many times that their sting has been entirely lost. 

Thursday is suddenly irritated by Stromming’s indifference, his bland reticence, and the triteness of his words. The inspector gestures around him at the tiny room, empty and bereft of all Stromming’s former grandeur. “So what’s this, then, doctor? Your hair shirt?”

Stromming follows his gesture, eyes glancing around the room and then coming back to rest on Thursday. 

For the first time the mask slips, and beneath it is heavy, dripping disgust. “You, inspector, are my hair shirt. Do you think it pleases me to sit and answer your questions like a tame animal? This?” He waves his hand carelessly at his surroundings. 

“This is simply my life, now. This is what I could salvage, all that was not tainted. My wife and her music, my student and my position, my ridiculous affair and my crosswords. You tell me, inspector: what remains of my life that I could bear to look at day in and day out and not see them there?” His tone is curt and acidic, and he spits the words as though they have a bad taste to them. 

There’s no answer to make; Thursday shakes his head and stands. He’s finally seen what’s under the mask, and it isn’t directed at Morse. Stromming probably hasn’t thought about him in months. Not locked away here with only himself for company. 

“Thank you for your time, Dr Stromming,” he says, earnestly. Stromming shrugs, and Thursday picks up his hat without offering his hand and makes his own way to the door.

Stromming watches Thursday leave from his armchair, his face a study in self-hatred. 

\----------------------------------------------------------

When Thursday returns to the CID, he’s reminded abruptly for the second time that morning of the day Debbie Snow went missing. The room is a storm of activity, officers from downstairs manning the desks on the other side of the partition to coordinate telephone and radio messages, men called up from their day off to sort through Gull’s files and the previous murders, PCs pushing in and out around him with updates and questions. 

Thursday presses through the chaos, catches Strange and Jakes’ eyes and nods towards his office. 

Inside with the door shut, the cacophony of phone calls and typewriters and voices is cut down to a background hum. Thursday slips out of his coat, taking his pipe out as he hangs it up, and takes a seat. He scans his desk briefly, checking to make sure no urgent requests for authorizations of men or resources have come through. Finding it thankfully empty, he looks back to the two sergeants as he unrolls his pipe ant tobacco.

“I talked to Dr Stromming; he says he hasn’t given any information on the Tremlett case to anyone, either now or last November. Says he’s never met Gull, and has nothing to do with the whole business. I’m inclined to believe him, but Strange, you might check with Broadmoor on any incoming or outgoing letters from Gull. Have we heard anything on the post mortem yet?”

Strange shakes his head, “No, sir.”

Thursday starts filling his pipe and glances inquiringly at Jakes, who is leaning up against the arm of one of the two free chairs with his arms crossed. “Nothing yet, sir. We’ve had men out at Cronyn’s house; it’s been sold since, and the new owners haven’t seen anyone matching his description. The locks have been changed, and no signs of tampering with any of the entrances. His consulting rooms have also been sold – nothing there, either.”

Jakes pauses while Thursday lights the pipe; it takes several draws for it to catch, the flame from his lighter small and flickering – it needs refilling. He’d noticed yesterday, and had forgotten until just now. He leaves it on his desk when he’s done; it’ll have to be matches until he has time to deal with it. Until Morse is back, he amends - partially a necessity, partially a promise. 

Jakes resumes once the pipe is drawing and Thursday’s attention is restored. “A team also went through Morse’s flat and found nothing unusual, no more clues. The front door showed signs of recent jimmying. The lock was ancient; it wouldn’t have been hard. We had men visit Mrs. Balfour’s husband, and the Madison’s – none of them reported any contact from Gull. We’ve patrols going to check Grace Madison’s home, as well as the Nimmo farm; they should report in in about an hour.”

Thursday nods. “Alright; well done. Get a patrol by the hall where Rosalind Stromming was arrested – the New Theatre. Check everywhere in there. We arrested her on the stage, but if he’s there he could be anywhere in the building.”

“I thought you said Stromming wasn’t involved?” says Jakes.

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean Gull isn’t using the case as the basis for his little puzzle. If anything, it’s too obvious, but maybe that’s what he’s hoping for: a double bluff.”

Jakes makes a quick note in his book while Thursday looks to Strange, waiting patiently with his hands at his sides. He’s had a few months to adjust to the suit and he’s started to wear it comfortably, but now and then Thursday can still see him twitching to stand with his arms behind him. His chest rises before he begins, like a schoolboy about to recite a poem.

“I got the story on the opera from the choir’s expert – a former don. You had all the main points right before, sir, he just clarified a few extra details. The girl, Butterfly, has a son while her husband is gone. He’s American, and returns with an American bride. They decide to adopt the son, and Butterfly agrees after she meets the wife. She’s secretly heart-broken though, and ashamed of her mistaken faith in her husband. At the end of the opera she gives her son an American flag to hold and blindfolds him, then goes behind a screen and kills herself with her father’s knife.”

“Where does it happen?” asks Jakes, closing his notebook.

“Her house. Or rather the husband’s house where she’s been living. She’s kept it ready and decorated for his return the whole time. I asked the professor about timing – he said there wasn’t anything specific to either time of day or date.”

“Not a lot of help,” comments Thursday.

“No, sir.”

Thursday sighs, smoke curling around him. “Alright. We still don’t know which of the two options it is. If it’s about Rosalind Stromming then it has to be something to do with the case and her death. Jakes, after you get a patrol onto the theatre, go back over the files from that case. Look to see if there’s anywhere it could be, any place that has a tie to Stromming and Morse.”

He turns to Strange. “On the other hand, if it’s just about the opera and Morse is Butterfly, it has to be something to do with either a local building associated with the opera, or Morse’s flat. Keep someone at his flat, and find out if there are any local productions of Madame Butterfly planned, or any in the recent past. And ask that expert about any famous productions in Oxford in the past.”

Both sergeants nod, Strange shifting closer to attention, Jakes straightening from his slouch against the chair. “Yes, sir.” They head for the door, Jakes in the lead. As soon as the knob turns the hectic clatter of the main room leaks in.

“And Strange,” says Thursday just before he makes it out the door; Strange pauses. “On your way out bring in the turntable and Stromming’s record, would you?”

“Yes, sir.”

It takes less than a minute for him to bring in the turntable and record; he leaves silently, shutting the door behind him. 

Thursday opens the lid and finds a record already sitting there, _La Traviata_. Thursday considers it for a moment before lifting it out and setting it down carefully on one side of his desk. He slides Stromming’s LP from its cover, both the cardboard cover and the record itself in pristine condition, and places it on the turntable. Lowers the needle, and turns it on.

Overtop the soft crackle, the orchestra begins in a hectic rush that gives the sense of very nearly running out of control. Thursday grits his teeth against the mouthpiece of his pipe and forces himself to pay attention to the music, rather than the men hurrying on the other side of the door with updates on the search.

\-----------------------------------------------------

It doesn’t take very long for his wrists to go completely numb. Afraid that rattling the handcuffs against the chair may bring Gull back, Morse shifts forward in the chair and puts constant weight against them instead. He knows neither the cuffs nor his wrists will give, but after several minutes of unbroken pressure, it seems that neither will the wooden rungs that make up the chair’s back. The handcuffs’ chain has been looped behind the middle rung, giving him very little room to shift his hands for either leverage or comfort. 

There’s nothing nearby that could be used either to help him break out of the cuffs or the chair, and even if there were he would never be able to pick it up with his hands trapped between his back and the back of the chair. The windows are closed, making shouting for help useless – even if anyone were passing by outside, they would never hear him. Gull would, though, and more than very nearly anything Morse doesn’t want to end up like Cronyn, struggling through his last hours in a morphine-induced stupor. 

He’s beginning to try to calculate whether if by tipping the chair over backwards onto the corner of the bed frame he might be able to break its back when he hears footsteps outside the door. He releases the pressure against the cuffs just as the door opens, feels the first sensation of creeping cold through his wrists that marks the blood beginning to return. 

“If they haven’t found you after the first few hours, what do you think the chances of them finding you now become?” asks Gull curiously, closing the door behind him. He moves over to the side of the bed and sits down, crossing his legs and hooking his hands over one knee. “Surely the odds of finding men lost in the wilderness – finding them alive, I mean – decrease over time. Is the same true for you?”

Morse glares silently at him. Gull gives him a long-suffering look, as though tired of Morse’s unreasonable complaints. “Oh, very well.” He reaches out, fingers brushing against Morse’s cheek. Morse doesn’t have time to brace himself before Gull rips the tape off. It feels like a grater has been ripped across his skin for the first second, but dies back almost immediately to a much more minor burning.

Morse takes a couple of deep gulping breaths in through his mouth as he pants against the pain. “What do you really want, Gull?” he asks, as soon as he has the air. “What’s this really about? Revenge? Ego?”

Gull sits back down, delicately folding the duct tape in half so that the corners stick together perfectly. He speaks without looking up, focused on his task. “When did you realise you were different from everyone else? The things you knew, you saw, were things other people didn’t even notice – never mind understand.” He glances up, and expands. 

“I was fourteen. I woke up one day and realised: there are no rules, no constraints on our behaviour. We’re taught that there are – that they’re there, invisible and intangible but somehow still measurable, like the equator. Most people go through their whole lives believing that. But that’s because they can’t see what we see – the fences around our behaviour are only in the minds of the feeble, and once you know that you can walk right through them without consequence. If you’re bright enough.”

Morse stares. “You’re suggesting that ethical behaviour, morality, is an illusion?” he says, slowly. “Societies may create specific mores, but they arise from our basic innate tendencies.”

Gull gives him a knowing look. “Are they? Or do you just believe that because you were raised with them? Show me right, show me one particle of wrong.”

“They are there,” says Morse, with absolute certainty. 

“So you say. But I have killed; I’ve watched the life drain from terrified eyes. And I felt nothing.” He leans forward as he speaks, staring straight into Morse’s eyes. Morse pulls away, unable to hide the disgust in his face. 

“That isn’t superior intellect, Gull. That’s insanity.”

Gull’s face frosts over. He straightens slowly out of his pose of confidante into stony watchfulness. Morse immediately regrets his honesty, and barely keeps his face from betraying him there as well. He falls back on the mask that still feels like home, the one he wore every time he crossed his father’s doorstep for the past several years. 

“Having a brilliant mind and refusing to acknowledge it isn’t far above feebleness. There’s no fence to sit on here, Morse. Endeavour,” Gull adds, leering. “Too bad your Chief will never face that problem; don’t worry, the interesting parts of your file are safe with me.”

Morse grits his teeth to keep himself from speaking, jaw so tight his cheeks ache. Gull reaches out behind him; Morse cranes his neck to try to follow his hand, but can’t.

“So tell me, which is it?” Gull jerks the chain of the handcuffs against the back of the chair, slamming Morse’s wrists into the bars. Morse’s jaw, already clenched, doesn’t let any sound escape. “Are you different than the others? Your schoolmates, your colleagues, your chief? Or was I wrong? I can rectify my mistake at any time.” He stands and walks around behind Morse. When he reappears on Morse’s other side, he’s holding a long knife in loose fingers. 

Morse’s eyes slide slowly from the knife’s naked blade to Gull’s eyes. After a moment, he speaks. “I was sixteen. I had a… choice. To die, or not to. I decided not to. I don’t think it was the choice most people would have made.”

Gull raises his eyebrows, swinging the knife with casual inattention – the blade swipes back and forth like a pendulum. “Why?”

The light is catching on the steel as it moves; Morse forces himself not to watch it. “Because I only had two advantages: opera, and my intellect. Most sixteen year-olds don’t listen to opera; none of them are me.” He lets just a hint of vanity creep into his voice, and sees the approval in Gull’s face. 

“Maybe I am different,” he admits cautiously, afraid to strain credulity by buying into Gull’s logic too quickly. It’s hard to muzzle the scepticism, the condescension – he’s never been a good actor. “Sharper, brighter. And maybe what you say is true, what you want to show me is real. But how will you know if you’ve really convinced me?”

“If you’re as smart as you think, you should be able to figure it out,” replies Gull impatiently, uninterested. He sits down on the bed again, tossing the knife to lie near the pillow. “Now tell me,” he continues in a more animated tone, like a child settling into his favourite game, “How is it you haven’t already given up on the police?”

END OF CHAPTER 2


	4. Già il Sole!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So what if there’s more of a connection between Morse and Butterfly? Beyond just her death.

Rosalind Stromming’s voice dies away, and the orchestra builds to its final climax as Butterfly silently ends her life. The last voice on the record is that of her husband calling to her frantically, too late to save her. Thursday jerks the needle from the vinyl and stands, fed up and exhausted with the overblown theatricality of the opera, with the rich, roiling emotionality of it – the overstrung tragedy of made-up lives laid out as a feast for the audience. 

Tonight, a man may die because of it – Morse may die simply so Gull amuse himself playing director. 

Suddenly sweating under a tight collar, Thursday runs his hands through his hair and he steps over to open the window. The wooden frame sticks against the sash and he jams it up roughly, the glass shaking reprovingly. As soon as it’s open he leans out, lets the cool breeze wash over his face and feels some of the tension fade away.

After a minute of staring into the distance as his heartbeat slows, his eyes focus on the street below of their own accord. Only a couple of cars are pulling slowly past the building, the sidewalks mostly empty. Thursday glances at the clock on his wall and is surprised to find it’s only mid-afternoon; it feels like time has been rushing past, like they’ve been haemorrhaging minutes. 

They still have more than twelve hours. Still have more than half the time given to them. But they also still have yet to find anything substantive.

A knock on the glass of his door makes him turn; Jakes puts his head in. “The pathologist is here, sir. He’s in Mr Bright’s office.” He glances at the open window, a shadow of incredulity passing over his face; Thursday realises suddenly that it’s already quite cold in his office.

“Alright; you and Strange come as well; we don’t have time to waste on repetition.” He jerks the window shut and follows, slamming closed the lid of the turntable as he passes.

Thursday feels the eyes on him as he crosses the floor towards Bright’s office. Thursday’s always played fair, but a DC as bagman will always smell of favouritism, and in a way it is – just merited favouritism. That’s not a distinction most of the men have drawn, though, and it means the station’s walking on eggshells around him. Ironically, it’s more irritating than a lack of regard would have been. 

Jakes speaks over his shoulder as they walk down the corridor, “Just heard back from the men at Nimmo’s farm, sir. Nothing there. The land’s been sold but nothing done with it as yet, and no signs of recent activity. Nothing at Grace Madison’s house, either. Still checking over the theatre – we haven’t heard back from that team yet.”

“Right.” Thursday doesn’t bother to watch him; if Jakes had news, he would have given it already. He stares straight ahead instead, working out the number of men who must be out on dedicated searches right now – a considerable portion of the station’s discretionary budget. 

There’s no time for Strange to provide an update before they reach Bright’s office. At the door Thursday knocks, then enters.

Bright is sitting at his desk, smoking a cigarette that’s approaching the filter. Doctor DeBryn is sitting in one of the two leather-backed interview chairs; he rises as they enter, but Thursday gestures him back down again. The doctor turns his chair to partially face them in compromise.

Thursday has been working with DeBryn for a few years now. He’s familiar with the doctor’s various demeanours, generally pleasant and easy-going but always underlain by the tidy kind of confidence that comes from being the most educated man in a room. The look he gives Thursday as he approaches is one Thursday hasn’t seen before: a sharp, demanding glance.

“Have you found anything about Morse?” he asks, without prelude. Thursday is struck by the oddness of having the pathologist be the one to ask him for details; if DeBryn notices it there’s no sign of it in his attitude. 

He shakes his head once. “Nothing yet. We still have a number of leads to investigate.” And then, almost immediately, “Did you complete the autopsy?”

DeBryn pauses, and for a moment Thursday thinks he might refuse to change the topic, but eventually he nods. “Yes. The chief physician at Broadmoor performed the autopsy with myself, the local pathologist and Gull’s charge psychiatrist in attendance. I’ll have my report typed up for you by the end of the day, but the pertinent fact is that you were correct: the corpse was not Mason Gull’s.” He reports it matter-of-factly, without any sensationalism and, if anything, a kind of weariness.

Thursday, already certain of the fact, simply nods. Bright’s face contorts in disgust and disbelief, his cigarette burning away forgotten between his fingers. “My God.”

“I don’t believe He had anything to do with it,” says DeBryn dryly, falling more securely into his usual role of expert. “The hospital will have to confirm the man’s identity using dental records. I understand, however, that an orderly who failed showed up for work this morning matches the deceased’s general description. He worked on Gull’s unit.”

“What was his cause of death?” asks Thursday. “They reported that he was struck by a train, didn’t they?” he turns to Strange for verification; the sergeant nods.

“Although the corpse had been subjected to massive trauma, the majority was inflicted post mortem. Cause of death was a deep head wound inflicted by something long, thin and heavy, such as a crowbar or a poker.” He describes the weapon with his hands, sliding them apart to indicate something about two feet in length. He then pauses, pushing his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose. 

“There was one other thing. I learned from the local pathologist that the corpse was found originally at about six in the morning. It would have been before the dawn, and it was a misty morning. Additionally, the place where the body was recovered was one where the rail tracks run between dense bushes, not far from the hospital.”

“In other words, it would have been easy for Gull to push him out in front of the train without being noticed,” concludes Thursday; DeBryn nods.

“Precisely.” He regards Thursday closely, cocking his head. “There was one other thing, although it’s not strictly related to the autopsy…”

Thursday raises his eyebrows. “Yes, doctor?”

“As I said, Gull’s chief psychiatrist attended the procedure – Dr MacKenzie. I was able to speak with him briefly regarding Gull’s mental state in the past few months before I left. He reported that Gull had been surprisingly self-critical, almost disappointed with himself, in many of their sessions. Apparently that wasn’t a habit he engaged in during his previous hospitalization. MacKenzie also said that he had observed that Gull was forming a new obsession – a different one to the revenge fantasies he focused on before. Gull wouldn’t talk about it in detail, but MacKenzie formed the opinion that they were centred around a younger man, a policeman.” DeBryn purses his lips in silent judgement.

There’s a heavy silence in the room as everyone pointedly refrains from stating the obvious. Thursday feels his lips twisting into a sneer and stops himself, fisting his hands unobtrusively at his sides instead. He wants to demand to know how they could let Gull escape, how they could assume he was dead, how they could have failed to notify Oxford about any of this. But that’s futile. It happened, and they’re running out of time to deal with the aftermath. 

“Did this MacKenzie have anything helpful to offer?” asks Bright, putting out his cigarette in the crystal ash tray with fastidious little twists. 

DeBryn turns to him, shaking his head. “I’m afraid not. Gull refused to discuss the more mundane aspects of his crimes – where he worked from, where he procured his supplies. MacKenzie believed Gull thought it beneath him, but it might simply have been foresight and good common sense.”

He looks back to Thursday, hesitation in his glance now. “Before – with the child – Gull gave a deadline, did he not? Is there one this time?”

“Six am,” answers Strange quietly, when Thursday doesn’t. DeBryn closes his eyes briefly. When he opens them it’s still Thursday he addresses.

“I’ll be in my office if I’m needed. Anytime until then.”

“Thank you, doctor,” says Bright, with gratitude. Thursday simply nods, but he sees understanding in DeBryn’s face. 

“We’d better get back,” he says, gathering the two sergeants with a glance. “Thank you for your report, doctor.”

DeBryn nods. “Good luck,” he says, simply.

\----------------------------------------------------

Thursday sits down heavily at his desk, ancient floorboards rocking under him. “Tell me you have something,” is the first thing he says to Strange, standing solidly in front of him while Jakes closes the door.

He knows at once from the look on Strange’s face, though, what the answer will be.

“Sorry, sir. I have a list of performances of Madame Butterfly in Oxford – only 2 since the war. The expert said there aren’t many operas put on here; we’re close enough to London that most people go there to see the shows. One was performed at the New Theatre; we’re already searching that. The other was performed in the Sheldonian – I’ve sent the patrols just back from Grace Madison and Benjamin Nimmo’s houses to search there. Everything else seemed a long shot.” He flips open his notebook, skimming over a couple of pages, and then adds, “There’s an exhibit of Japanese paintings on at the local art gallery, and the Butterfly Lodge in Lady Matilda’s college. That was all I could find.” He flips the book shut again morosely.

Thursday looks at the records, then through the glass of his door at the partition covered in Gull and Morse’s summaries.

“What are we missing? What haven’t we thought of?” He pulls out the note Jakes gave him originally, _24 hours, Un Bel Di._ “Is it an anagram? Some other kind of word puzzle?” He stares at the letters, willing them to rearrange themselves into something that makes sense, a clue that leaps out at him. They don’t.

“There is one other thing, sir,” suggests Strange, hesitantly. He clears his throat, then goes on. “Before, some of the deaths had a closer connection to the opera characters, didn’t they? Evelyn Balfour was unfaithful, like Othello thinks his wife is. Grace Madison lived in India.”

“And I was supposed to be that copper from Tosca,” agrees Thursday, slowly.

“Right. So what if there’s more of a connection between Morse and Butterfly? Beyond just her death.”

“Like maybe Morse is actually a Japanese bint?” drawls Jakes. Strange ignores him.

“The point of the opera is Butterfly’s blind love – her love for a man who doesn’t return it, or even recognize it.”

Jakes snorts, giving Strange a derisive look. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Strange, but Morse isn’t exactly a lady’s man.” 

“He went out with that girl in the munitions factory– the one who worked for the Brooms family – knew her from Oxford,” says Thursday slowly, also ignoring Jakes. He can hardly remember the girl, only recalls scrapping with Morse about using her as a source. 

“Nothing doing – he had no idea she fancied him. And anyway she gave him the push right away, didn’t she? Not exactly years of unrequited love.” Jakes produces a cigarette and lights it, takes a deep drag and blows out the smoke. 

Thursday looks to Strange. “He’s never mentioned anyone? You were studying for your sergeants together for months.”

Strange shrugs apologetically. “He keeps himself to himself; doesn’t talk about his past or his family. I’ve given up asking. The one thing I know is that he doesn’t get on with his step-mother; I’m not sure why, can’t recall the conversation. But I don’t think it was a recent falling-out.”

“It’ll have to be the sister, then. She was the one who called when his father was taken ill, wasn’t she?” even as Thursday asks, he’s sure it was. Joyce. 

Thursday’s experience with Morse on the topic of family isn’t much different than Strange’s, but he’s formed his own impression of Morse’s relationships: at best antipathy towards his father, outright animosity towards his step-mother. The only living member of his family Morse has ever spoken fondly of is his sister, and even then he’s hardly ever mentioned her. His mother he speaks of only as an event – her death splits his memories into two definitive groups: the things which happened before it, and those which happened after. 

“That’s right, sir. He’s probably got her number in his desk somewhere…” Strange trails off, waiting for permission, and Thursday waves him away to look for it. He turns to Jakes, who lowers his cigarette.

“Are we still doing alright for men? Got enough to cover us?”

“We’ve been managing with our own regular shifts, plus men coming in on their days off or working overtime. We’ll need to pull in some extra relief for the night shift if we keep sending out so many dedicated patrols.”

Thursday glances at his clock again; the afternoon’s starting to tick away. “See Mr Bright about it now – we’ll need to get them called up soon for tonight.”

Jakes slips out, nearly running into Strange as he suddenly appears in the door holding a piece of paper. He brings it to Thursday – Joyce Morse’s telephone number. 

Thursday waits for Strange to leave, shutting the door behind him, before pulling his telephone around the pile of records to sit at his elbow. He studies the dial, notes the dust collected in the bottom of each circular indent, the faded amoeba-shaped coffee stain on the cardboard piece which gives the phone’s own number. 

He’s been avoiding this. Part of him has been arguing that Morse wouldn’t want them to know, wouldn’t want Thursday to inform them. Part of him points out that this is an active investigation on a very short timeline, and informing families is neither their policy nor a priority.

It’s all true. But none of it makes it any easier. He finally picks up the receiver with a heavy hand and dials the number.

The phone is answered on the third ring by a bright young voice, and it only then occurs to Thursday that Morse’s step-mother might have answered the line. Pushing past that unrealised circumstance gratefully, he clears his throat. “Miss Joyce Morse?”

“Yes?”

“It’s DI Thursday from the Oxford City Police. Do you have a minute?”

He hears the rustle of clothes, or maybe paper, as she adjusts her stance. “Yes. Yes, certainly, inspector. What is it?”

“It’s about your brother, miss,” Thursday begins, and stops dead. There is a whole sea of words in front of him, any number of tacks he could take. But in the end, it comes down to the simple fact that he’s trapped between terrifying and trite, and while lying is impossible, the truth is so much harder. He leans forward on his desk, pinching the bridge of his nose, and tries to think.

“Inspector? Inspector Thursday? What’s happened – has something happened to him?” The fear in her voice pulls him back into the conversation, forces words into his mouth without letting him debate over whether they’re the right ones or not.

“He’s missing,” says Thursday, bluntly but as calmly as he can manage. “We strongly suspect he’s been taken by a suspect who – who likes playing games. Leaving clues for us to solve to taunt us.” 

There’s a quiet thump and a slithering sound from the other end of the line, probably Joyce sliding down against the wall. “Oh my God. Is he alright? Do you know where he is?”

“He’s alright – we know he’s alright, right now. But we need to find him. That’s why I called you, Joyce. We think the clue that was left for us might have something to do with Morse’s past. Something about an old flame, or a relationship that ended badly – something where Morse was betrayed or broken up after?”

There’s a silence. And then, to Thursday’s surprise, a quiet, humourless laugh. “You described it pretty well. Yes. There was a girl – when Endeavour was up. Susan – I don’t remember her last name, and I think that might actually have been her middle name, but it was what she went by. They were dating for more than a year, then got engaged. I’ve never seen him so happy, before or since.”

Thursday opens his eyes, staring in shock at the far wall. “He’s never mentioned it.”

“Well, he wouldn’t. She broke it off not too long afterwards. There was a bloke she’d been seeing in her first year, and she went back to him. It really shattered Endeavour, just ruined him. He left school, left Oxford. Joined the Signal Corps, and then the CID after that. I was … surprised, when he went back to Oxford. Shocked, really. I didn’t think he’d ever want to. I suppose it means he’s forgetting about her. Starting to, anyway.” She sounds hopeful.

Looking back on Morse in this new light, Thursday can see that she might be right – can see dozens of sharp edges on the DC that stood out rough and raw when he first arrived at the OCP but have since dulled. He can’t imagine, if this is Morse some seven years after the breakup, what he must have been like in the direct aftermath. Doesn’t want to imagine it.

“Is this really helpful? Will it help you find him?” Joyce asks.

“I don’t know,” he answers, honestly. “I hope so. Where was he living when they were engaged?”

“In college – he had a room in the halls. I don’t remember which. Is it important?”

“It might be. They should have it in their records.” He picks up a pen and pulls over the scrap of paper with her telephone number on it. “Which college was it?”

“St John’s.”

He jots it down. “And you don’t know Susan’s last name?”

“I’m afraid not. I can look back and see if I have any of his old letters, but I don’t think so. He got rid of most of his papers, I know – burnt them, I think. If he still has any, they would be in his flat; mum’s redone his old room here.”

It’s a diplomatic statement, but he can hear a hint of strain in her voice, an acknowledgement of the tension in her family’s relationships. 

“Thank you; I’ll see what I can find here. It may come to nothing, in any case.” May be just another empty lead, burnt out and leaving just a taste of ashes. 

“When – when will you know? Should I come down?”

“I wouldn’t advise it, miss. There’s nothing to do here but fret, and that’s better done at home if it has to be done at all. We’ll know by tomorrow morning – we’ll have turned him up by then. I’ll give you a ring, first thing.” He leaves no room for doubt in his tone; it’s no use to either of them. 

There’s a sniffle, but just one, quietly. When she speaks, her voice is soft but clear. “Alright; thank you. Inspector?”

“Yes, miss?”

“What I told you – about Endeavour. When he was home, he talked about you. He trusts you; says you’re a good man.” She takes a breath, long and slow. “My brother doesn’t trust many people, Inspector. That’s why I told you what I did. But you won’t – he wouldn’t want other people to know. I don’t mean about the engagement, just that… just that he cared about it so deeply. So please, don’t –” she trails off, unable to put her request into words. 

“Just the facts, miss,” he says immediately, voice firm. “That’s all anyone else here needs to know; I’ll see to it.” 

She sighs, relieved. “Thank you.”

“That’s alright, miss. We’ll find him, don’t you worry. I’ll ring you tomorrow morning, alright?”

“Yes. Yes, thanks. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye.” He puts the revolver down with a click, and stares at the piece of paper in front of him.

_St John’s college.  
Susan._

\-----------------------------------------------------

The sides of his stomach have been rubbing fractiously against each other for hours before Morse finally works up the determination to say anything. It must be well past noon by the sun’s position, probably closer to sunset, and he’s moved through aching into the sickening feeling that comes of not eating for too long.

“Listen,” he says, after he finishes turning his life in the Signal Corps inside out for Gull’s benefit. “I haven’t eaten anything since last night. Is there anything – I can’t keep talking forever.” Even with his stomach climbing up his spine, he can’t bring himself to beg Gull for food. 

Gull seems to hesitate, and Morse takes advantage of his uncertainty to add, “I need the loo, as well.”

That seems to decide things; Gull rises slowly and pulls a small key from his pocket. With his other hand he picks up the knife from the bed. “I won’t hesitate,” is all he says, holding it tight against Morse’s throat. The blade is cold and very sharp, a paper-thin line against Morse’s skin. 

He unlocks one hand and lets Morse pull it free of the cuff, allowing him to pull both arms from behind his back. Morse does so gingerly, fire flaring in his shoulder joints. He hisses as he brings his arms around to rest by his sides, the handcuffs hanging from his left wrist knocking gently against his thigh. 

He could make a run for it now – with Gull stuck behind the chair he has at least a slim chance of getting out of the room without having his throat cut. But Gull doesn’t need to catch up with him; a knife in the back will stop him perfectly well. He sighs and brings his arms farther forwards, examines his wrists. They’re battered and swollen, the broken skin along the darkest bruises painting pale smears of blood over his forearms. 

“Do them up,” orders Gull, pulling the knife slightly to the side across his neck; there’s the faint sting of a razor cut in its wake. Morse does as he’s told. Then: “Untie your legs.”

The lengths of rope binding his legs to the chair’s are wound over and under the crossbar, keeping Morse from simply standing and sliding his legs free. They’re tied at the back with simple knots, though, and even with his hands cuffed he unties them easily. 

“Alright. Get up.” 

Gull stands behind him, holding the knife steady at his throat, and puts his free hand on Morse’s shoulder to push him out of the room. He frogmarches Morse down the hall, knife never moving from Morse’s skin, and into the bathroom. Even there he doesn’t release him for an instant, the weight of his hand and his blade unfailing. 

“Drink what you want,” he tells Morse when he’s done and the tap is splashing cool water on his pained wrists. Morse glances at him in the mirror, sees his own face – pale and surprised – and behind it Gull’s, bored and uninterested. There is no give in his face; Gull is an adept cell guard, efficiency brought by long experience and a complete lack of compassion. 

The water tastes of old pipes but Morse drinks deeply all the same, pouring it into his mouth with his hands. It spills down his face and chin in his eagerness and he lets it, only wiping it off when he can’t drink anymore. It sits uncomfortably in his belly, suddenly and unexpectedly full, but it’s better than the sickening emptiness.

When Morse’s done, Gull turns him around and pushes him the wrong way out the bathroom. He stumbles, confused, but Gull doesn’t let up and he finds his pace again hurriedly rather than risk the knife slicing into his larynx. He stops at the last doorway, the door ajar on its hinges. Gull pushes him in and he goes. He pulls up when he sees the occupants, though, knife suddenly forgotten.

There are three people in the room. Only one of them is alive. 

Lying in one corner in an unnatural heap, limbs stiff and eyes empty, are the corpses of a man and a woman. There are several heavy lines in the carpet leading in from the doorway, suggesting both were dragged in from other rooms. They lie untidily like a pair of children’s toys, unimportant, forgotten. Morse can feel himself beginning to gag, and looks away.

The third occupant is a man tied into a chair. He’s been gagged using tape, but his head is lolling unnaturally to the side, eyes heavy and unfocused. He shifts slowly when they enter, moaning quietly.

Morse stares down at him, throat closing up completely. He can’t swallow, can’t make a sound, can’t breathe. His heart is pounding in his ears, drowning out the silence of the room. 

Behind him, Gull slings his arm over Morse’s shoulder and leans around close. Only now does he lower the knife – he uses it to point at his other captive. “This seemed like a good opportunity for you to meet my other guest,” he says, in a conversational tone. “You were asking how I would know if you’ve really opened your eyes. There’s how.”

Morse can’t move, can’t twitch. He stands frozen with Gull draped over his shoulders, staring dumbly. 

“He’s already dead, of course. The only question is whose hand will be on the knife. Mine,” he rests the flat of the blade on Morse’s shoulder, its tip pointing towards Gull’s face, “or yours.” He presses the point into Morse’s chest, right over his heart.

If he moves, takes a step, breathes – does _anything_ – to disturb his stillness, he will break. Will fight, will run, will scream. So he stands there, unmoving, until Gull turns him around and walks him out of the room like a tin soldier.

Back in his chair, he ties his feet back up, looping the rope over and under the crossbar on Gull’s orders. He lets Gull unlock his wrists, then lock the cuffs back around the middle rung in the back of the chair. 

Gull lowers the knife, and returns back to sit in front of him, smile back on his face. “Your inspector, my Scarpia,” he begins, settling down to talk, as though they’d never stopped.

Morse sits up straighter, listening with a flat face. Behind his back, he grasps the rung tightly with both hands, and starts twisting.

END CHAPTER


	5. Con Onor Muero

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the other end of the line, someone takes a slow breath. Then a low, steady voice starts singing.

Thursday sits at his desk with his head in his hands. Even with his eyes closed, he can feel each tick of the second hand driving like a dagger closer and closer to his heart.

Half the OCP is on the street, hoping beyond hope that Gull will make a mistake, that someone will see something, that a miracle will happen. PCs are out on bicycles searching the downtown core; men are out in their own cars driving the outlying farmland, the two county canine officers are searching on foot with ties and handkerchiefs taken from Morse’s flat.

Right now, he could probably do more good out there as one more set of eyes than he can do here. Desperation, fury, terror and exhaustion have stifled his mind, strangled the capacity for logical reasoning from him. He is the head of this investigation, he is Morse’s last, best hope for salvation – and he has nothing. 

Morse dies in one hour.

The silence of the outer office, now still as a tomb, is broken by the shrill ring of a telephone. Thursday digs his knuckles into his temples, tries to block out the sound, tries to think.

The office door slams open, knob striking the wall with a crack, and he looks up. Strange is standing in the doorway, wide-eyed.

“Sir. It’s Morse’s phone.”

Thursday blinks. The phone rings again, and he heaves himself out of his chair. Strides around the desk and across the office, pushes past Strange, and jams his hip into the corner of Morse’s desk as he tries to skate around it at too sharp an angle.

Throat tight, he picks up the receiver. “Hello?”

\------------------------------------------------

That hasn’t happened yet.

\-------------------------------------------------

The phone is ringing. 

Sitting at his desk, Thursday stares at it for several seconds before stretching out a heavy hand for the receiver. 

Outside the window at his back, night has fallen. The last rays of the sun disappeared a while ago, leaving his office lit only by the electric lights above. Somehow, the setting sun has taken something more with it. In the outer CID office men are still streaming back and forth through the doors, but the frantic fervour of the afternoon has disappeared. Resignation is starting to seep in. No one’s voicing it yet, but the doubt is creeping into their voices all the same.

Alone in his office, Thursday isn’t despondent. He isn’t doubtful, isn’t feeling the gloom setting in.

He’s furious. It’s a cold, jagged kind of rage, sharp and frigid as ice shards. It’s slicing into him mercilessly, deeper and deeper with the inevitability of a pendulum. 

There are less than eleven hours left, and they have nothing. Jakes is turning St. John’s inside out; Strange is tracking down Alice Vexin to investigate Morse’s Susan. Bright is drafting officers from the Oxfordshire police, and beyond. Still, all their guesses, all their efforts, have yet to produce a single real clue. 

That’s half the cause of his anger.

“Thursday,” he says shortly, picking up the phone. 

“Fred,” comes Win’s voice, sounding winded. Whoever he was expecting, it wasn’t Win. He sits back in his chair, takes a deep breath and adjusts the receiver to rest more comfortably against his cheekbone. She continues in a low tone, “I’ve just seen the evening paper.” 

That, of course, is responsible for the other half of his rage. 

The papers have gone to town with the story, cut out whatever they were planning to run as their headline stories and crammed in the city’s own home-grown drama. No effort has been spared in wringing out every last drop of sensationalism from the situation.

He looks down at the copy on his desk, and feels his lip rising into a snarl. They’ve had the gall – the _gall_ – to use the picture of Morse that started this whole thing, the one Mason Gull pinned up in the basement of Nimmo’s farmhouse. From the cheap paper Morse stares up at him from the page like a deer in headlights, face over-exposed in the bright camera flash. Beside his picture is Gull’s, taken during his arrest at Afredo’s college. There is no surprise in his face, just the complacent self-satisfaction of a well-fed cat.

_Oxford City Detective Kidnapped by Opera Phantom_ , screams the headline.

“Is it true?” she asks, after a moment of silence.

“It’s true. We had to release the story – needed the publicity to spread the photos,” he spits, bitterly. Getting their own photos reproduced and spread before evening would have crippled the station’s budget, where a call to Dorothea Frazil solved their problem for free, as Bright wasn’t behind in pointing out. 

Free, of course, is a relative term. In this case, it comes with the price of being described to the city and, by tomorrow, the nation as an “earnest and soulful young man, admired in the community for his honest nature and dedication to justice,” with “a gifted voice, praised previously by this publication.”

“When?” Win asks, breaking Thursday’s line of thought. He looks away from the paper, eyes tracing back and forth across the top of his sideboard.

“He was taken sometime last night – we haven’t turned up any witnesses yet. We found out about it when he didn’t come in this morning.”

“Oh, Fred.” 

“It’s alright,” he says, automatically. It sounds false, even to his ears. 

She replies immediately, compassion now tinged with exasperation. “Of course it isn’t.” 

A sudden longing for home – for warmth and comfort and the simple knowledge that everything is right in his world – swells up in him like a tidal wave, unforeseen and immense. That longing casts into an even sharper relief the cold uncertainty of the situation. 

“I don’t – Win,” he says, suddenly unable to keep up the baseless hope, the unwavering certainty he’s been projecting for hours. This is Win, and he doesn’t have to lie to her. Can’t lie to her. “I don’t know if –”

“You stop that, Fred Thursday. Of course you’ll find him. Of course you will,” she repeats, and he can imagine her standing in the front hall, holding the phone in both hands, her assurance intense and absolute. “Besides, you should have more faith in Morse – he’s a bright lad. If you can’t find him, he may just do the job for you.”

He wants to believe it. Wants to with all his heart. Wants, even more, for her to be standing here in front of him with her hands pressed flat against his chest laying out the future for him straight and sure. “Win…”

“The two of you stopped him before, didn’t you? So stop fretting, Fred. You’ll bring him back. And when you do, you bring him home with you. Sam’s gone for the weekend, he’ll stay here. I’m sure he could use a few good meals.” There’s no arguing with that tone. 

“Alright, Win.” He presses the heel of his hand into the bridge of his nose until he feels the pressure there abate a little. “I need to get back. Don’t wait up – I might not be home tonight.”

She makes a soft sound of agreement. “Take care.” She hangs up first, the line going dead in his hand.

Thursday replaces the receiver gently, hand lingering for a moment. Then his gaze falls back on the paper on his desk, on Morse’s wide eyes. 

He balls it up with a savage movement and throws the damned thing at the wastepaper bin.

\---------------------------------------------------

Thursday is standing in the outer office, staring at the large map taped up to the partition, when Jakes returns.

The map is of Oxford, divided into neat grids 100 yards wide. Each grid has had a small piece of paper affixed to the corner with notes pencilled in on the last time patrolled. All of them have been checked once, most twice, and those in the heart of town even oftener. They’ve found plenty of other petty offences from parking violations to one break and enter. But no escaped lunatic, no missing detective.

Thursday glances up as Jakes appears in the doorway, the collar of his camel-hair coat still turned up against the cold, cigarette in one hand and a manila folder in the other. He’s scowling, and as he pushes through the doors he takes a deep, angry drag on the cigarette. He freezes when he spots Thursday, hand still raised to his mouth. For an instant, Thursday thinks he’s going to put on a solicitous mask. But then the moment passes and he strides over and slaps the folder down on his desk. 

“Bloody academics,” he spits, taking another drag. “Took them more than an hour to pull up a floor plan of the building. Don’t ask how long to find which hall Morse lived in. And in the end? Nothing. Every room checked, from the attic to the basement. No one’s seen Morse, no one’s seen Gull. Half of them haven’t seen the paper.” He combs his free hand through his hair, shaking his head.

“And the girl – Susan’s – hall?”

“Supposed to be the jilted lover’s home, isn’t it?” he asks, but seeing the black look on Thursday’s face wipes the irritation from his own. “I sent the squad on to search it, left two PCs at Morse’s old hall just in case. But they’d checked all the porters and the scouts before I left, and none of them knew anything. Don’t think they’re there, sir.” 

“Well they must damn well be somewhere!” Thursday slams his fist into the side of the glass partition; it shudders violently, two of the map’s corners coming free with a quiet smacking sound. “We’ve got enough men out there to find Amelia bloody Earhart, never mind an escaped madman and one of our own DCs! They’re here somewhere, right under our noses! So where haven’t we looked?” he demands, words pouring out hot and thick as tar as he stabs at the map. 

It’s at that moment that the map’s last two corners give out. It falls to the floor, slicing straight down through the air and landing on its edge with a surprisingly loud crack. 

“Christ!” 

It’s then that Thursday realises the rest of the noise in the room has stopped. That all activity, all speech, has cut out entirely, all attention focused on them. Jakes makes to go after the map and he checks him sharply: “Leave it.”

Jakes straightens slowly, eyes watchful. Thursday forces himself to take a breath, then another. It’s only then that he notices his hands are fisted, his stance tight and weight low – ready for a fight. He rises up out of it carefully, shifting from brawler to superior. “As you were,” he says, to the room at large. And then, to Jakes, “Bring me any updates.”

As he heads back into his office, he hears someone curse under his breath. Through the glass of his door, he sees Jakes stooping to pick the map up off the floor.

\---------------------------------------------------

It’s past midnight when Strange comes in, shoulders bowed and feet dragging. He enters Thursday’s office without knocking, and Thursday can tell at a glance that he simply forgot. Jakes comes in after him and hands him a steaming cup; Strange takes it automatically, without seeming to actually notice it.

Thursday’s sitting at his desk, has been there for a long time now. He’s tired, tired in a way he wouldn’t have been twenty years ago. His earlier anger has bled away, has been replaced by cold, numbing exhaustion. He watches Strange enter wordlessly, chin resting on his folded hands. 

“Reckon I’ve called up half of England,” he says, drifting to a stop a few feet from Thursday’s desk. “Miss Vexin sat up with me for a good while, helping. Morse’s bird married and moved to London, then Cornwall. Miss Vexin hadn’t kept in contact, but she knew friends of friends. I got through to her in the end – had to knock up her landlady first.” He looks at Thursday and shakes his head despondently. “Nothing. Hadn’t even heard about the murders last fall. Her husband was there, too. Neither of them’ve seen or heard from Gull.”

He looks down at the cup in his hands, then takes a drink.

“How can it be nothing?” flares Jakes, pointing to the note on Thursday’s desk. “We’ve looked into everything – the stupid riddle, the opera, his flat, his hall, the bird, Gull’s old targets. How can none of it be right?” 

“We’re missing something,” says Thursday, vaguely. “Something, somewhere.” He passes a hand over his face, tries to wipe away the tiredness. It sticks to him like a second skin, cold and close and growing heavier and heavier.

“Go bring me some of that,” he says, nodding at the cup in Strange’s hand, “and the map, and we’ll go over it again. Whatever it is, it has to be there. It’s probably staring us right in the face.”

Jakes gives him a sceptical look, but slips out of the room silently. Strange takes a seat, the chair creaking under his weight, and leans back with his eyes closed. 

Whatever it is, they’ll find it. They have to.

\-------------------------------------------------

That was then. This is now.

\--------------------------------------------------

The office door slams open.

Thursday looks up. Strange is staring at him, wide-eyed. In the background, a phone rings once, the shrill bell cutting through the silence.

“Sir. It’s Morse’s phone.”

Thursday blinks. The phone rings again, and he is moving. He cuts past Strange and around the door, strikes out and grabs the receiver in a white fist.

Throat tight, he raises it to his mouth. “Hello?”

There is nothing on the other end, just the faint crackling of an open line. “Hello?”

The rest of the office is still, men frozen watching him. Beside him, Strange is breathing heavily from the dash across the room; standing by his own desk, Jakes is watching him intently. 

On the other end of the line, someone takes a slow breath. Then a low, steady voice starts singing. Morse’s voice – slightly higher than his speaking voice, and much smoother. Thursday’s hand tightens on the receiver. 

It isn’t really a song – all the words are sung on the same note: “ _Con onor muore chi non può serbar vita con onore_.” It’s slow and cold, dirge-like. Beneath it, though, there’s just a hint of tension that shouldn’t be there. Wasn’t there in Rosalind Stromming’s voice on the record.

“Morse – where –” begins Thursday, desperately. There’s a click, and then the hum of a disconnected line. 

Thursday stares at the receiver for a moment, then slams it down. “Dammit!” He pulls away, still staring at the phone. “Dammit, Morse,” he says again, more quietly.

“Sir?” beside him, Strange is watching anxiously.

He reaches out slowly, placing a hand on the pile of records on Morse’s desk. On the top is the sepia-coloured recording of Butterfly, evicted from his office hours ago. 

“It’s from Butterfly’s last song in the opera. ‘Those who can’t live with honour must die with it.’” He lifts his hand and rubs at the bridge of his nose. It’s as good an excuse as any to close his eyes in exhaustion, in despair. “She sings it just before she kills herself.”

\----------------------------------------------------

“Not your best performance,” says Gull, the back of the knife resting on the phone’s hook. “Still, adequate. Pity I couldn’t have brought your records, but then what would those poor fools have done?” He replaces the receiver and caries the phone back to its table. 

Morse draws his breath back in with a shudder, shivering from the adrenaline. Or it might just be the lack of food; he hasn’t eaten in thirty six hours, and he’s starting to feel light headed. Between that and the lack of sleep he’s having trouble holding onto his thoughts for more than a few seconds; they keep slipping away, slick as eels. 

Since darkness fell, Gull has been breaking away for longer periods, possibly to sleep. He’s certainly looking much fresher and alert than Morse feels. Their conversations, grown progressively shorter though the night, have taken on a stranger tinge in Morse’s mind. He feels like he isn’t in control of his words half the time, like thoughts are pouring out of him free and unconstrained, unedited by his internal censor. It’s in many ways like being drunk, except that now and then a cold kind of clarity returns, jolting him out of his inattentive rambling. In those few moments of clarity, it all feels very much like a nightmare. The rest of the time, the only thing he can keep in mind is that he has to agree with Gull, has to keep moving towards conversion. 

He feels that he’s losing the ability to gauge his success.

“One hour left,” says Gull, returning, tapping the glass of his watch. “We’ve given your colleagues all the motivation to succeed that we can – that’s only fair, really. For them, it will be an hour of anguish – of failure. But for you…” he bends down, leans in close to Morse and smiles. “For you, it’s a new dawn, a rebirth. When the sun rises, you’ll be a new man looking on a whole new world. Or you’ll have left this one behind. Which will it be?”

Morse blinks, trying to hold both the beginning and end of Gull’s speech in his mind at the same time. “I need some time – I need to think. Just a little more. Please. An hour. An hour alone.”

Gull tilts his head slowly, considering. 

“It’s – it’s a lot to accept. To realise. Please,” Morse says – pleads. His pride, his strength of will have starved slowly to death over the day’s course, and here alone in the dark they are gone. He has no strength to spare for face-saving principles.

“Very well. One hour. I did promise, after all,” Gull agrees, magnanimously. He stands, tapping the knife on his shoulder, and walks out slowly, leaving the door open. 

Morse drops his head, dizzy and breathless. The palms of his hands are slick with sweat, his muscles shaky. The bar trapping the handcuffs is loose, but that’s not enough. He still needs to get it out of its slots. Heart hammering in his chest, he starts trying to wrench it free. 

END CHAPTER


	6. Curtain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is how they will solve this. Right here, right now. Or it will never be solved, and Thursday will burn every album on this desk to ashes.

For just an instant the world is calm and restful – all silence and darkness. Then Thursday opens his eyes and looks around. 

Strange and Jakes are standing on the far side of Morse’s desk with the pale, washed-out look of men who haven’t had enough sleep. Strange’s one decent suit is rumpled, his tie askew and his collar hanging limply over it. Strange himself is watching Thursday with a mute attentiveness that is now tinged with desperation; for the first time Thursday can remember he is becoming fidgety, fingers tapping against his pants leg. Jakes, as always, is considerably more dapper, but the strain is showing in his face, stretched and grey with a muscle twitching just faintly near the scar under his left eye. 

Thursday takes in a breath and pulls out the chair behind Morse’s desk. Sits down slowly, and looks past his two sergeants at the case notes taped to partition. 

This is what they have to work with. This is how they will solve this. Right here, right now. Or it will never be solved, only unveiled by Gull or some fluke of circumstance, and Thursday will burn every album on this desk to ashes. 

“Maybe there’s some other puzzle. Some kind of word game,” says Strange in an almost defeatist tone, turning to follow Thursday’s gaze.

Somehow, right now, things seem clearer that they have for hours. In the mist of exhaustion, all the complexities that piled up throughout the day – Gull’s old haunts, the town theatres, Morse’s old flame – fade away into the background. The only things that remain are the hard certainties they started this morning with. _Un bel di._ Rosalind Calloway, Dr Stromming, Mary Tremlett. All he has left now is intuition; that has to be enough. 

“No. I think this is about Morse. Morse, and the Stromming case.” He turns to Strange, tapping the autographed album cover sitting in front of him. “You remember when we arrested Gull on the roof of Alfredo’s college. He shouted at Morse – what was it – ‘I know who you lost’?”

“‘I know who you couldn’t save,’” says Strange after a moment, face screwed up in concentration. 

“Right.” The memory comes back more clearly with the prompt; Thursday remembers the wind in his face and the stiff pain in his shoulder, and Gull shouting back at them – at Morse – as he was led away in handcuffs. “Has to be Stromming, doesn’t it? Morse blamed himself for her death –for her crimes, almost. Somehow, Gull found out about it; maybe he was thinking about this even then.” Thursday shudders a little at the thought, at the evil tree whose seed may have been planted that day in Gull’s twisted mind.

“But how could he have found out?” asks Jakes, cutting in with a sudden almost irritating practicality. “Morse wasn’t in the paper pining over her, surely?” 

“’I read your file’…” says Thursday, slowly. “Wasn’t that what he said? He’d have to have, in any case. It’s possible he could have gotten it somehow; he was playing a reputable psychiatrist, after all.” He looks at Morse’s desk, buried in albums, then over at Jakes’. “Where is it?”

It takes Jakes a quick rifle through the wire basket of files on his desk to turn it up. Thursday shoves aside one of the stacks of records as he brings it over, leaving enough room for Jakes to lay it down open in front of him. 

The inside cover is bare, a paper clip slipped over the top of the folder with nothing underneath speaking to the absence of Morse’s photograph, currently taped up on the other side of the room. Thursday flips past his personal information and record of education – no mention of his place of residence while in university – and past the sheet detailing his time at Signals. The first form in his police history is his record of employment in the Carshall Newtown CID. Then his official transfer to Cowley, and his case history starting with the Clark murders. Thursday frowns and flips through the remaining few pages, then back through them again.

“Something’s missing here,” he says, tapping the papers.

Jakes leans over, reading the file upside-down. “It’s got his registration file, and then the transfer, then case records. That’s right.” He looks at Thursday, and adds in puzzlement: “Isn’t it?” 

Strange, also leaning over, glances at Jakes and shrugs wordlessly. Thursday finishes checking the file for the second time, and straightens. 

“No,” he says, slowly. He can feel the gears fitting together in his mind, falling into place one after another, neat and smooth. “It was before your transfer. When Morse was first here, working on the Tremlett case, he was drafted in from Carshall Newtown – brought in on temporary attachment. He wasn’t transferred until after the case, after Rosalind Stromming’s death. There should be a form here detailing his attachment. And, since he was brought in from across county borders, the station placed him in a billet; that would have been recorded here, too.”

“His billet?” asks Strange.

Thursday nods once, thoughtfully. “It fits. That’s where he was living when he met Rosalind Stromming, and when she killed herself. Obscure and complicated, but not unsolvable. And we know Gull knew about it – he took the sheets.”

“But then we’re buggered,” says Jakes. “Without them, we don’t know where it was. And we have – what, half an hour with travel? – to dig the duplicate out of the basement. If it’s even in the filing room.”

“We don’t need it,” says Thursday, standing, “I’ve been there, twice. It’s on Peppercorn, backing onto Magdalen Wood. A lodging house, an old Georgian monstrosity.” 

He pushes back Morse’s chair and heads for his office, giving orders as he goes. “I want at least two cars of men – we go in silent, no lights or sirens. Bring someone who knows his way around a lock; we don’t want to go breaking the door in if Gull’s waiting with Morse hostage. Get Dr DeBryn up there as well – tell him to wait in his car down the street; someone will fetch him if he’s needed. And you two,” he says, pausing at the door and turning to face them, “bring your side arms.”

“And if we’re wrong?” asks Jakes, as Thursday pushes open the door with his shoulder. He looks straight at Jakes, voice firm.

“We’re not wrong.”

\---------------------------------------------

Peppercorn Avenue is hardly a mile from the station; an easy walk for a man brought in on attachment without a vehicle. Jakes drives, Thursday sitting in the passenger seat with his elbow resting on the door. “Morse’s room was upstairs at the end on the left,” he recalls. Jakes glances at him, surprised, and he shrugs. “Dropped off a note once,” is all the explanation he gives, watching the headlights skim over hedges, branches bare as old bones. “There’s not much room in the corridor – Strange and I will go left; Jakes, you take a man and go right. The rest of them search downstairs; we can’t be tripping over each other.”

“Right,” says Strange, in the back seat; Jakes nods, hands gripping the wheel tightly as he stares out at the dark road ahead. 

There isn’t time for anymore before they’re pulling down the street. Thursday holds up a silent hand as soon as he spots the roof of the lodging house, indicating it with a tap on the glass. It’s hidden away behind a stone wall, and Jakes pulls up by the kerb before the nose of the car can edge around the gate. 

He’s out of the car before it’s stopped fully, pistol in his hand and flashlight heavy in his pocket. He waits at the corner of the gate while Jakes issues instructions to the men pouring out of the other two cars, listening while taking stock of the house. It sits far enough back from the street that the few street lamps cast no light on it, the whole of its grounds in shadow. There are lights on inside somewhere, but not in the front windows; the interior glows with a faint yellow light, just enough to clearly show the house’s rough proportions.

Thursday glances behind him as Jakes draws to a close by ordering the sole rifleman to wait outside. There’s hardly any light from the cloud-blanketed sky; with the streetlights hidden from the house by the garden wall, there will be nothing at their backs to silhouette them. “No lights ‘til we’re inside,” he says in a gruff voice just above a whisper. “Don’t lose the element of surprise unless there’s no choice.” 

Helmets shining dully in the street lamps, the men nod. With Strange and Jakes just behind him, Thursday leads the move across the gravel drive, stepping quickly and carefully. They swarm across the gravel with a low noise like the roar of the ocean captured in a sea shell.

Thursday pauses at the front door, and behind him hears Jakes summoning a man with lock picks. “Wait,” he whispers, and Jakes falls silent.

The front door is ajar, a tiny slit of light marking its meeting point with the frame. He raises his gun and pushes it slowly open with his free hand while standing slightly behind the doorframe. 

The wide hallway is empty, a light shining from somewhere further back on the first floor casting long bars of dusty light through the central staircase’s bannisters. To the right, a large front room stands silent and dark, shadowy furniture lurking in its depths. There’s also a light on the landing at the top of the staircase coming from somewhere to the left of the stairs. Thursday glances behind him and finds Strange and Jakes there, and indicates the stairs with a nod of his head. 

There’s carpeting on the staircase, a green that looks almost grey in the poor light, and despite their age the steps are silent as he ascends with his heart in his throat. Glancing down through the bannisters he sees three men heading past towards the back of the house in a dark wave. Then he’s on the landing, and they are out of his sight. 

At the far left of the hallway the door to what used to be Morse’s room is also ajar, much more widely so than the front door. Through the gap he can see part of an empty bed and the arm of a wooden chair. He creeps forwards one step at a time, tensing to spring; the butt of his pistol is hot in his hand, his finger stiff on the trigger. He has a sense of Strange’s reassuring weight behind him, blocking any chance of escape. 

Thursday barrels into the room without warning, shoulder slamming the door open and gun sweeping ahead of him. He swivels tightly on his heel as soon as he enters, scanning the hidden space behind the door – mostly open floor, with a wardrobe and small desk against the far wall. A folding screen partially obscures a window on the other side of the room; a telephone sits on a table beside it, its cord folded crookedly beneath it. 

There’s no one there. The room is empty. 

He looks back at the bed – made sloppily, not slept in. The wooden chair sitting in the middle of the room is old but of good quality – a solid wooden seat and rounded wooden rungs making up the back. The centre of the five rungs is missing, the bottom slot it sat in gouged and scarred; stepping forwards Thursday catches sight of the wooden bar lying under the chair. There are two loose lengths of rope pooled on the floor at the chair’s feet. 

Eyes widening, he’s turning towards Strange when something out of the window behind the bed catches his attention. 

The window looks onto Magdalen Wood, mostly just a sea of shadows. But just visible through the branches a tiny light is bobbing in the darkness, moving deeper into the wood. 

“Follow me,” is all he says, already running. 

Out on the landing Jakes is coming towards them from the other end of the hall; Thursday doesn’t give him time to speak. “They’re in the wood,” he says as he cuts past Jakes. He takes the stairs three at a time – behind him he can hear the sergeant shouting at some of the other men, but whatever he says Thursday can’t hear over pounding of his heart in his ears, furious and unrelenting. 

Digging his flashlight out of his pocket, he tears out the front door and around the back of the house towards the dark trees. 

\--------------------------------------------------

His heart is thrumming like the water over the rollers in the Cherwell, an unbroken cacophony. 

Morse is trying to suck in air through his mouth but his throat is so parched it feels like the skin is beginning to crack, each breath stinging all the way down into his lungs. It’s turning his breathing shallower and shallower, which in turn is making him lightheaded. The forest floor is cold and damp under his feet, all hard dirt and tree roots, and he’s getting clumsier the further he goes. His bare feet are still sore from the gravel in the drive, and they protest anew at each rough root or stone he stumbles over.

He isn’t running so much as staggering, drunk with exhaustion and hunger, through the trees. In the inky darkness he is rapidly losing his sense of balance and direction; each tiny slope he climbs or descends seems equally likely to be his shaking muscles giving out as an actual obstacle, and he stumbles blindly up and down the uneven ground in confused fog. Now and then he slams into a tree, bark rough against his bare skin, and the adrenaline spike is enough to remind him where he is, to bring him briefly out of the haze where all he knows is: run.

He only has to make it deep enough to hide until sunrise, until the deserted street can be canvased safely for someone to call the station, and this will be over. He’s free, finally free from Gull, and in a couple of hours he’ll be warm and dry and –

On the ground in front of him, a spot of light dances by, illuminating a crooked root and a stone covered in moss for an instant before disappearing. Morse slows, staring at it in confusion for an instant, and then – 

“Got’cha,” says a voice in his ear. 

He gives a cry of surprise as a hand grabs his shoulder and spins him around. Strong fingers dig painfully into the flesh of his shoulder just beneath the collarbone and he makes a low noise of pain as he tries to pull away. A bright light shines in his eyes, blinding him with first white and then, when it moves away, red light. He tries to blink away the film of crimson, already breaking up into burning spots on his retinas. 

“I think I’m honestly disappointed,” says Gull, breathing hard. There’s a rattling thump as he drops the flashlight to the hard earth below. “You had such potential. A real future.”

Terror cuts through the confusion in his mind, strings words together for him on a thin thread of sense.

“You’re mad,” hisses Morse; the words set him to coughing. He stops abruptly when he feels the cold steel of the knife against his throat. Eyes watering from the effort of not wheezing, he forces rough speech out, “Listen to me. Listen: you don’t want help – I know that. But if you kill me, they’ll lock you up forever. Can you really think they’ll let you out again after this?”

“ _Let_ me?” asks Gull, voice rich with humour. “Just as they let me out this time? I told you, I see doors you can’t – and never will.”

“You’re not – this isn’t one,” begins Morse, desperately, head spinning. From somewhere over Gull’s shoulder, a light flashes. He blinks and it flashes again, longer, over his eyes. 

Then he’s moving, being spun around dizzyingly by Gull’s hand on his shoulder. Gull steps around behind him, knife skating from one side of his neck to the other while Gull lets go of his shoulder to hold him with his arm pinned across the front of Morse’s chest instead, firm as a band of steel.

Some seven or eight yards away, two lights are flashing between tall trees. He closes his eyes and turns his head away, blinded. 

“Gull,” roars Thursday, furiously, and Morse freezes. “Let him go. Drop the knife and let him go. Do it now.” 

He opens his eyes again, trying to peer into the darkness, but there’s only black and blinding white and he can’t make out Thursday’s figure. 

“We made it in time, Gull. We played it your way, and we won.” There’s a pause, the flashlight wavering, and then Thursday finishes, “It’s 5:50.”

“I will admit, inspector, I never expected you to solve it. Well done,” praises Gull, heavily condescending. He leans in close over Morse’s shoulder, “I really had hoped to have something very different waiting for you. But our lad here just wouldn’t play up.” 

Thursday doesn’t let himself be sidetracked. “We can still fix this, Gull. You drop the knife and let him go, and we can end this all clean and simple.” 

“Can we really?” Something in his sneering superiority and the heat of his breath on Morse’s cheek reminds Morse in a flash of two bodies lying heaped carelessly on one another, of the smell of blood on Gull’s skin. He grimaces, unable to pull away either forwards or backwards. 

“I can tell you one thing: it won’t end well the other way. You don’t drop that knife, you don’t walk out of here. That’s a fact.” Thursday lowers the light to shine on the ground between them; beside him, the second light lowers as well and reveals its holder to be Strange. The ambient light is bright enough for Morse to make out their pistols, aimed directly at him – at Gull, just behind him. He can’t make out the expression on Thursday’s face, but he doesn’t need to. He’s heard Thursday’s tone before: in the Moonlight Rooms, with the floor and stage empty and Vin and Vince Kasper at the other end of the gun.

“Is it?” challenges Gull; Morse can hear the smile in his voice. 

At Morse’s throat, the hair-line pressure of the knife becomes more – stings, sharply, and he shudders as it draws blood; he feels it running down his neck in a hot stream. His heart is pounding so hard he can see Gull’s arm shaking with it as he holds Morse pinned. 

Thursday stiffens, taking closer aim. And then, slowly, he lets the pistol fall away; beside him, Strange mirrors his movements. 

“As I thought,” says Gull, sneering, and the pressure eases off. “You have no move to make. You’ll stand right there and watch me slit his throat on the off chance that I might not – if you take a shot, who knows how deep I’ll jerk this?” He raises the knife slightly in demonstration, high enough that Morse can see the sheen of it in the buttery light. 

On Morse’s left, something flashes with a crack of thunder, while at the same time Gull wrenches him sharply to the side and then pulls away. Morse staggers forwards a step, purely from the pressure he had been exerting to keep Gull from dragging him backwards, and then takes another as he realises Gull has let him go. His legs are trembling alarmingly as he staggers forwards, his loose pyjama trousers flapping against them. 

He looks to his left as he moves and for a moment sees Jakes there, illuminated in the glare of a flashlight; he’s staring at something behind Morse intently, eyes wide and face white. He’s holding a gun still half-raised, although he lowers it jerkily as Morse watches.

Then Thursday is grabbing hold of him, catching him tightly about the chest and pulling him close. It’s enough to upset his already poor balance, and Morse tips heavily into Thursday’s arms. He finds his head resting on Thursday’s shoulder; the inspector smells of pipe tobacco and aftershave. “You’re alright, Morse,” he says, in a shaky voice. “You’re alright.” 

Morse can’t really say for sure; he feels shaky and cold, and his thoughts are bleeding away in an anaemic river – he can feel them going, but can’t catch them. He lets Thursday wrap his coat around his shoulders; it’s heavy and warm and also smells of Thursday, of familiarity and safety.

Thursday says something about handcuffs and keys, and Morse realises then that he can’t actually stand up on his own. Bits of the world seem to be going by without his noticing; all of a sudden Jakes is beside him, looking at him strangely. He wipes a finger against Morse’s cheek as if removing a missed spot of shaving cream, looking ridiculously sombre as he does so. It strikes Morse as funny and he tries to laugh, but that turns into a cough which he stifles only by burying his head in the heavy lapel of Thursday’s coat.

Things get very confused after that. He has some recognition of being carried between Thursday and Jakes through the woods, bare branches extending like grasping hands above his head, and then a burst of light and heat and sound. There’s a chair, surrounded by blurry shadows with rounded heads, and someone with warm, careful hands kneels in front of him and checks his head and neck adeptly.

“Morse? Morse, do you know who I am?” 

He blinks once, then again, and tries to focus on the form in front of him. “DeBryn,” he manages, thickly, when the name comes to him at last. 

“Good. Did he drug you, Morse? Injections, pills?” He runs a careful hand up Morse’s left arm, still trapped behind his back, moving around the chair crab-like to peer at the skin carefully.

“No – no.” Morse shakes his head, words slurred. “Nothing.” His tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth and he makes a face. “Thirsty.”

DeBryn pauses in his examination of Morse’s right arm. “When did you last drink? Or eat?” he asks, sharply.

Morse has no answer to that, just shakes his head. DeBryn stands abruptly and disappears from his line of sight; from somewhere in the distance he hears muffled voices. When DeBryn returns it’s with a glass of water which he puts to Morse’s lips and tips, slowly. 

The water is cold; beyond that he’s too busy trying to suck it down faster to notice anything about it. He clears his throat thickly when it’s all gone preparatory to asking for more, but someone behind him speaks before he has the chance. DeBryn puts the glass down on the floor with a quiet clink, and steps over to stand beside him.

“I’m going to open the handcuffs. I’m afraid this is going to hurt,” he says, slowly, in a careful tone that’s tinged with something too complex for Morse to make sense of. He nods anyway.

The weight of the handcuffs disappearing from his numb wrists doesn’t hurt at all; Morse rolls his head to the side to try to see if they’ve actually come off, and finds he can’t see his back over his shoulder. Instinctively, he brings his arms forward to check. 

The fire rolls up his arms from his wrists into his shoulders where it smoulders, furnace-hot. 

For an instant Thursday’s face swims above his, caught somewhere between angry and pained, mouth moving soundlessly. Then the world fades mercifully to black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be concluded in the epilogue


	7. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The worst monsters are the ones that make you follow in their footsteps.”

Thursday sits on the wide arm of the ancient sofa in the lodging house’s front room, keeping an eye on everything happening around him but most of all on his unconscious DC, stretched out on the sofa below him. Strange added his suit jacket beneath Thursday’s coat when they moved Morse to the sofa, and between them, the pyjamas and the thick layers of gauze the pathologist bandaged his feet with, Morse looks more like a scarecrow than an up-and-coming detective. He’s alive though, and sure to stay that way for the foreseeable future: that’s all that matters. Two others weren’t so lucky – three, with the Broadmoor orderly. 

DeBryn oversees the transfer of the one other survivor, still drugged to the gills with morphine, from the room upstairs to the ambulance waiting outside. Thursday watches as the procession passes by the open entrance to the front room. It’s led by Strange in his shirtsleeves, followed by the first ambulance man and DeBryn, holding an intravenous drip over the stretcher, and brought up at the rear by the second ambulance man and a PC to accompany the ambulance to the hospital. The small group passes out of his line of sight and onto the gravel drive, the crunching of their footsteps soon mixing in with the rest of the activity in the drive.

The front door has been propped open by a few hardbacks taken from the shelves in the front room, cold air rolling in constantly as men track in and out – forensics, photography, the morning shift of PCs. The green carpet is already covered in dark footprints and smears of mud and dust. 

Jakes has been in and out constantly, directing men outside in the drive as well as in the hall and kitchen. He hasn’t been upstairs since they returned from the wood – Thursday has, and can’t blame him. Jakes has the worn, twitchy look of a man who can’t sit down because he knows he won’t get up again; Thursday watches him slip outside and return a moment later without apparent purpose, and realises it’s been a while since he last saw the sergeant completing a task. 

Thursday rises with a sigh, bending carefully over Morse to filch his pipe bag and matchbook out of the coat covering the lad. Tomorrow, he promises himself with a glance at Morse, he’ll refill his lighter. 

He pads over to the open doorframe leading into the main hall and leans up against it, striking a match and lighting the pipe. He catches Jakes’ eye as the sergeant turns and draws him over with a nod; he waves out his spent match but lights a second and offers it. Jakes produces a cigarette from the case in his pocket with a move Thursday knows to be instinct and leans in to allow the inspector to light it. 

“You should be heading home,” Thursday says, putting out the second match with a snap of his wrist and dropping both of them into the pot of a convenient houseplant. “One of the lads going off-duty will drop you.”

Jakes gives him a cagey look, face half-hidden by the hand holding his cigarette. “There’s plenty to do here, sir.”

“And plenty of men to do it – we’ve still got the reserves, and Mr Bright will be out soon to oversee things. Lots to keep up with, and on top of it all the press’ll be here soon, like as not. You’re not fit to deal with it – none of us are. So you run home and get a few hours’ kip. You can push round this afternoon; they’ll be some paperwork to do.”

Jakes exhales slowly, a long breath of smoke, eyes staring at a point in the far distance past Thursday’s shoulder.

“You did right,” Thursday tells him, and sees his eyes snap back to meet Thursday’s. “It may not make it easier, but it’s true all the same. Bringing down Gull was the only way to save Morse – one death instead of two. Don’t you doubt that, Jakes.”

Jakes straightens, face hardening. “I’m alright,” he says.

“Right,” agrees Thursday mildly. “But you’re going home all the same. Have something to eat, get your head down. We’ll sort out what needs sorting this afternoon.”

For a moment, Thursday thinks Jakes is going to argue. But then the fight goes out of him all at once like a curtain falling, and leaves just a shaken kind of exhaustion behind. “Right, then,” he mutters, pushing a hand through his hair and destroying the last semblance of order there. He gives Thursday a vague kind of nod, takes a drag on his cigarette, and stalks out towards the door. He pauses in the doorway, hand still at his mouth, and looks back. “You let him know – I didn’t do it for him. I mean – I’d’ve done it no matter who – it wasn’t –” he shakes his head once, sharply. “Never mind.”

“You saved a hostage,” says Thursday, and sees the flash of gratitude in Jakes’ face. “That’s what you saw, that’s how you acted. Quite right.”

“Just so’s we’re clear,” agrees Jakes. A moment later he returns his cigarette to his mouth and steps out into the drive, hands shoved deep in his pockets against the cold. He’s walking quickly, and disappears from sight around the corner almost immediately.

Thursday drifts back into the front room, cherishing the familiarity of his pipe between his teeth. He’s dealt with situations where his words rang true – as they may for Jakes now. But his own actions weren’t taken to save a nameless man, and he knows in his heart that he would have dropped Gull the instant Morse went down if it had come to that – that he would not have offered surrender. 

He wonders if that thought should scare him, but knows perfectly well that it doesn’t, and never will. He wonders if it would Morse, and knows equally that he’ll never ask.

He’s just re-seated himself when DeBryn enters, chafing his hands. “You should be going, inspector,” he says as he comes over to stand by the sofa, raising the collar of Thursday’s coat to check the bandage on Morse’s throat. 

“Just waiting for your final nod,” returns Thursday amicably. “Who will be taking over here for you, doctor?” He glances at the roof, and the crime scene beyond. 

DeBryn straightens, pushing himself up with his hands on his knees. “No one. Unlike you, I caught a few hours’ shut-eye. I have a sofa in my office.” He catches Thursday’s half-humorous, half-sceptical glance, and adds, “I also have an extensive collection of treatises on the pharmacology of native Agaricales genera.”

Thursday frowns. “Pardon?” 

“Precisely,” says DeBryn, with a wry smile. “As for my nod, you have it. Take him home. A couple of days of rest and good food and he’ll be right as rain. Make sure he has something simple to start with after he wakes up – soup broth, beef tea, that sort of thing.”

“Thank you, doctor.” A flash of movement in his peripheral vision makes Thursday turn; Strange is standing in the entranceway. He motions him over with a tip of his head. “Give us a hand, Strange. Time to go home.”

\--------------------------------------------------

Strange drives, with Thursday in the back beside Morse to keep him on the seat. The sun is creeping up over the low rows of houses in the east, streets beginning to fill with morning traffic. Strange’s driving is of a far more start-and-stop fashion than Morse’s, but that may just be the exhaustion. Thursday catches his eyes darting to the mirror frequently – far more than the straight-forward local roads require. 

As they pull into his street, Thursday sees that the light is on over the front stoop and the dining room curtains open – it’s as near to bunting as Win comes. Thursday reaches over Morse to open the door as soon as Strange cuts the engine, Strange hurrying out and around a moment later. 

“I’ll carry him, sir. It’s not far; probably easier, in any case, if the hall’s narrow.” He suits his actions to his words, bending to roll the unresponsive Morse up over his shoulders as he steps away from the car. Thursday slides out after, stepping briskly down the path to pass Strange and unlock the front door.

Win beats him to it, throwing the door open and coming out onto the front stoop with her hands clasped tightly together, already dressed in a skirt and pullover. Her eyes flash from Strange to Thursday; he gives her a reassuring look. “He’ll be alright. Just needs some rest.”

She nods, stepping back into the hall. “I’ve got Sam’s room ready. This way.” She leads Strange upstairs, Thursday shutting the door and following more slowly. By the time he enters Sam’s room Strange is already depositing Morse in the turned-down bed, slipping the layers of borrowed jackets and coats off awkwardly. He backs away as Win tucks Morse in, returning Thursday’s thick coat to the inspector silently and folding his own jacket over his arms. Thursday claps him on the shoulder.

“You head home and get some sleep, Strange. Take the car – you can bring it round for me this afternoon. About three should do it,” he adds, performing a quick mental calculation. 

“Yes, sir.”

“Mind you have a good bite to eat as well,” Thursday tells him, ushering him downstairs and out the front door. Strange gives him a tired nod. Like Jakes, he too pauses in the doorway. Thursday can see him searching for words, trying to book-end a night that slalomed from despair to hope to terror before finally reaching relief. 

“Somehow, it doesn’t feel like it’s over, sir,” he says, finally. “Barely an hour ago, we didn’t even know if…” He shakes his head, pulling his hand across his forehead in silent protest at the thought.

“That’s just the exhaustion and the adrenaline talking, Strange,” says Thursday, kindly. “After a case like this, sometimes it takes a little while for time to snap back quite right. You’ll feel better after a kip.”

Strange gives him a dubious kind of nod, and pulls the car keys from his pocket. “I’ll be back at three, sir.” 

“Right you are.” He waits until Strange is on his way down the path before closing the door and flicking off the stoop light. He can feel the exhaustion eating away at him as well, his stamina wearing very thin.

As he’s already there, Thursday takes the opportunity to hang his coat up on the coat hook, fingers lingering for a moment over the lapel. He turns back to the stairs to find Joan standing on the last step but one, still in her pyjamas, staring at him with her arms crossed tight over her stomach. He startles backwards, heart leaping in his chest. “Strewth, Joan. Don’t go creeping about – you’ll give a man heart failure.”

Joan ignores his outburst entirely, face pale and anxious. “What’s happened? Where’s Morse? Is he alright? Mum said you were to bring him home with you.”

“I did – he’s in Sam’s room, and he’s to be left alone; he needs some sleep. He’s fine,” he adds, when the tenseness doesn’t immediately disappear. It does then, giving him enough strength to ask, “And shouldn’t you be dressed? Bus’ll be leaving soon, surely?”

Joan gives him an exasperated look. “It’s Saturday, Dad. And besides, it’s hardly gone seven.”

Thursday didn’t make Detective Inspector by letting surprises shock him; as such, he doesn’t let his disconcertment show on his face. “Right. Well, you can get back to bed, then. Or make your mother some tea; she looks like she could do with it.”

He receives his second shock in as many minutes when, rather than clearing the way, Joan steps forwards and throws her arms around him. “I knew you’d get him back,” she whispers into his shoulder, her dark hair still tangled and mussed from bed. He returns the embrace.

“Quite right,” he replies, a little dazed.

She gives him a fond look as she releases him, slipping past and continuing down the stairs. “You want a cuppa?”

He shakes his head mutely, and she goes on her way. 

He finds Win in Sam’s room, sitting in his desk chair pulled over to the side of the bed, taking up the hems of a pair of Sam’s trousers. She looks up as he enters and gives him a smile; he comes over to stand beside her and wraps an arm around her shoulders.

“I can sit up with him,” he says, nodding at the chair. 

She gives him a longsuffering look. “You get yourself to bed, Fred Thursday. You look like death warmed over. And that poor lad you just sent home didn’t look much better. What are you about, going in this afternoon? You’ve been up all night.”

“There’ll be some paperwork that needs doing, Win. It can’t be put off,” he adds, seeing her about to protest. She frowns and puts the sewing down in her lap to lay a hand on his arm.

“What happened, Fred? Morse looks like someone tried to take him apart at the seams, and you’re here on your last legs talking about paperwork.”

“Gull’s dead,” he says flatly. “He’s dead, and I don’t give a damn. He came as near as possible to taking Morse with him, and the lad’s still one of the lucky ones.”

Her hand doesn’t move, remains steady on his arm. “Did you – ?”

“No; Jakes. He’ll be alright. If anything, I was worried it mightn’t affect him at all. He’s shaken, but he’ll get past it.” Thursday shakes his head. “I would have taken the shot, if I’d had it.”

“I’m sure he knows that.”

“No – I mean…” he looks her straight in the eye, and tells the plain truth of it. “I wanted Gull dead, Win. For what he did, and for what he wanted to do.” He lifts his hand off Win’s shoulder and examines it – clean, bloodless, but only because of a vagary of fate. “The worst monsters are the ones that make you follow in their footsteps.”

“You’re no murderer, Fred. Nor is sergeant Jakes. Start talking like that, and you’ll forget it. You did what you had to do, and you brought your men back safe.” She takes his hand and presses it fiercely. “Don’t doubt yourself.”

He looks down at Morse, sleeping stilly, the white gauze cutting across his throat in a thick band. “For a while, I really didn’t think we would make it,” he says, softly, returning the pressure of her hand. 

“I know. But you did. That’s what matters.” She lets go of his hand, and gives him a gentle push. “Off with you now. Go get your head down for a few hours.”

“Call me when he wakes. Really, Win – he’ll need to talk.”

She nods, and he knows she will. “Alright,” he says. “He’ll need something to eat, too. Do we have any Bovril? That’d do, to start.”

“I can heat some up for him in a tick, soon as he likes.” She picks up the trousers again, pulling the needle free from the hem and checking the cuff height. “Sleep tight.”

He moves towards the door, dodging around a magazine on the floor. “In just a minute. I need to make a quick call first.”

He goes downstairs to the telephone to tell Joyce Morse that her brother is safe.

\------------------------------------------------

Morse wakes up feeling uneasy, without knowing why. A few moments into consciousness he knows he’s not in his own bed – wrong sheets, wrong mattress, wrong smell. A few moments after that he remembers: confusion. A whole ocean of memories crash down on him at once, some too vague, others hopelessly specific: pain, hunger, Thursday’s voice close by his ear, the smell of dirt, horror, frustration, thirst, cold water on his tongue.

He opens his eyes, rolling onto his side preparatory to standing. And sees Win Thursday sitting in a chair beside him, pulling a needle through what looks like a table runner. He freezes, eyes scanning the room behind her in confusion.

Win lets the length of linen fall into her lap and raises her hands reassuringly. “It’s alright, love. You’re safe – Fred brought you home. You’re in Sam’s room.”

It takes Morse a second to equate Sam to Thursday’s son. His eyes take in a small room kept in a state of near-neatness, a few books and papers and items of clothing lying about giving it a lived-in feel. He pushes himself up on his elbow, wincing at the dull ache in his shoulder. “What happened?” He glances at the window and sees thick daylight pouring in under the drawn curtains. “What time is it?” he adds, frowning.

“About eleven, dear. You’ve been sleeping for a few hours; Fred brought you in early this morning. I’ll go fetch him, and put on something to eat. Bovril, he thought, and then maybe some toast and eggs? Or there’s a bit of ham left over.”

He nods uncertainly, only listening with half an ear. There’s still a huge sense of uneasiness overshadowing him, hanging close just behind him and he can’t seem to shake it off. “Um, yes. Yes, thanks. Anything’s fine.” 

She gives him a smile and stands, leaving her sewing behind her on the chair – hemming, he sees, looking closer. There’s a small pile of neatly folded napkins on the floor beside the chair; clearly she’s been there for some while. 

His arm starts to protest in earnest at the weight on it and he sits up properly, feeling the gentle rush of dizziness that usually comes from standing too abruptly. From somewhere down the hall he can hear Win Thursday speaking to someone in a low voice. A moment later she passes by the door, footsteps fading down the stairs. 

As he really beginning to wake in earnest, he realises that he needs the loo. He notices as he pushes the blankets back that his wrists are bandaged with what looks like surgical gauze; rubbing at them he feels the prickle of pain that comes from a bad scrape. His feet feel strange against the sheets and as he slides them out from under the covers he can see it’s because they’re bandaged as well, bundled up into neat makeshift socks. He remembers – dirt under his feet, coldness, tree roots – and rubs at his temple, frowning. The memories are all confused, jumbled up into a big mess, and he can’t seem to find the link to pull them into order. 

He stands slowly, finds that the soles of his feet feel raw as though sunburned, but that it’s no trouble to walk. He pads slowly across the room, somewhere between lightheaded and actually dizzy, and makes his way into the hall. All the doors are half-open; he catches the tell-tale glint of tile from behind one and heads for it. 

Thursday’s bathroom is full of the clutter he remembers from home – the clutter of four people sharing a small space provided with limited storage. Bottles and containers line the counter, a couple of jars of nail varnish sit on the sink’s corner beside the soap dish, and the bottom cupboard is propped partially ajar by some kind of cardboard box, probably full of cotton balls or hair pins. Like Sam’s room, it’s reassuring in its domesticity. But he still feels on edge, tense as if waiting for a loud noise to sound just behind him. 

He finishes with the loo and turns on the faucet to wash his hands, water cold over his skin. He cups his palms together and lets the water pool there as he stares at it, a memory fighting for attention in the back of his mind. His throat is dry, so he raises his hands slowly and takes a sip, looking up as he does so to see his reflection in the mirror. 

Mason Gull is standing behind him, grinning. 

Morse spins around with a cry, water splashing on his undershirt, and sees nothing but a dark towel hanging from the back of the bathroom door. He whips around again, heart hammering in his chest, while keeping his back to the wall – no one there. He’s alone.

With that one key piece, everything falls into place. Gull, the lodging house, the knife, the room at the end of the hall. Head spinning, Morse sinks down to the floor, jamming himself tightly in the corner behind the door. He’s panting for breath, trying to feed his racing heart. Gull is out there somewhere – where? – an invisible menace. Vulnerability slices deeply into him, shredding his sense of safety. He’s alone and exposed, unprotected and unable to protect himself. He slams his palms against the walls to try to push himself more deeply into the corner and feels them slip, slick and clammy; as he watches the tile floor seems to be twisting, straight lines shifting to curves. He blinks hard, beads of sweat stinging his eyes. 

“Morse? Morse? _Morse?_ ” Someone’s shouting beyond the wall, increasingly desperate. Morse tries to snap his arm up to hold the door closed but isn’t fast enough – it slams open, the motion echoed in the mirror. Reflected in it he sees Inspector Thursday in just his shirtsleeves – no tie, no shoes, his hair falling in lank disorder rather than slicked neatly back. His eyes meet Morse’s in the mirror.

“What on Earth are you – Morse?” Thursday steps in, transferring his gaze from the mirror to Morse as he clears the door. His tone softens abruptly as he does so and he slows, stretching out a reassuring hand.

“It’s alright, Morse. You’re alright. It’s all over; you’re safe,” Thursday says calmly, moving slowly closer and pushing the door out of the way. Morse shakes his head jerkily, neck stiff, back still jammed up firmly against the wall. 

“What – how – where is he?” He can’t unwind, can’t relax. His heart won’t slow down, keeps hammering on dizzyingly. 

“Gull is dead, Morse. He’s dead. We left him in Magdalen Wood.” Thursday stops in front of him and lays a hand on Morse’s shoulder; it’s warm and steady. “Should we talk about it in the other room?” he suggests. Morse just stares at him, unable to process the idea, unable to leave the safety of the corner, however slight, for an unknown. 

“Or we can stay here,” Thursday continues, amicably. He turns and sits down on the tile floor beside Morse, his left elbow and knee up against the sink counter, his right up against Morse. 

“How about I tell you what happened, alright? Before I start, though, you need to know that you’re in my home, and you’re safe. No harm’s going to come to you here, Morse. Endeavour. Do you believe me?” He speaks slowly and earnestly, staring Morse straight in the eye.

Morse swallows, the roar of his heartbeat fading to a quieter throb in his ears, and nods cautiously.

“Good.” Thursday nods, and takes a breath. “Right, then. Sometime early Wednesday morning, Gull escaped from Broadmoor. We don’t know how yet, although we damn well will before this is all done and dusted. Likely an orderly on his ward was involved; Gull later killed the man and took his clothes, and pushed his body in front of a train to fake his own death. Early yesterday morning, he broke into your flat and knocked you out with a sedative – the pathologist found some Thiopental in the house; very rapid-acting, but also short-lived. Both it and the morphine had been issued last fall; Gull must have hidden them away somewhere and picked them up after he broke out.”

Morse glances at his arm. There’s no syringe mark now, but he remembers the slight prickle of pain there yesterday morning. Thursday waits for him to look back up before continuing. 

“The first we knew of it was when you didn’t show up for work. We found a note in your apartment –”

“ _Un bel di_ ,” says Morse in a low voice. At Thursday’s surprised look, he continues, “He told me. Gloated about it.”

“Well, we got there in the end, but we didn’t have a straight run of it. By the time we arrived the time he gave was nearly up, and you were missing. Was that you, by the way?”

Morse nods, and is surprised by the look of pride in Thursday’s face. 

“We followed you into the woods – Strange and I, with Jakes following behind. When we caught up with you, you looked on your last legs, and Gull was just pleased to have an audience for his endgame. So we brought him down. He’s dead, Morse.” He says it matter-of-factly.

“Jakes,” says Morse, staring past Thursday at the white cupboard, but beyond that at the image in his memory – Jakes, caught in the light of a flashlight against a dark backdrop, gun in hand, looking shocked. “It was Jakes.”

“Yes. Sergeant Jakes was upstairs longer, and found – found Gull’s other room. He cut through the woods on a different route; Gull didn’t see him. He had the angle, and he took the shot.”

Morse remembers Gull’s breath on the back of his neck, and the glint of the blade in the corner of his vision. He remembers the sound of the shot, echoing like thunder. He remembers being wrenched around as Gull let go of him – or rather, was torn away by the violence of the bullet’s impact. 

And he remembers Jakes standing beside him, wiping something from his face. 

He turns to Thursday, eyes wide, as his hand shoots up to run over his cheek and then behind his ear, over the back of his skull. The hair there is matted with something thick but dried, the ends glued together in little spikes. Morse makes a low, sick sound in his throat as his stomach churns, his fingers tangled in Gull’s blood, his brai– 

“Stop it,” orders Thursday abruptly, forcefully. He grabs Morse’s hand and pulls it away, puts his other on Morse’s jaw and turns his head to look straight at Thursday. 

“Listen to me. Listen. Don’t think about it; don’t you think about it. You didn’t give in, you broke yourself out, and we brought you back – that’s all that matters. It’s over, it’s done and you’re here now.” Thursday speaks quickly and intensely. As he’s talking he releases Morse’s hand and, without looking away, reaches into the cupboard under the sink and pulls out a face flannel. He turns the faucet on for a minute, wetting the flannel, and then brings it to the back of Morse’s neck and pulls handfuls of hair through it, speaking fluidly all the while. 

“When you’re feeling better Win’ll fix you some tea, and we’ll see if we can’t find something for you to wear that fits. Or I can run ‘round to your flat this afternoon and pack you up a bag. I have to warn you that Joan watches her programs of a Saturday, and frankly I don’t know that she’d give over for anything less than a hand-written letter from David McCallum.” Thursday finishes with the cloth and deposits it in the sink. Only then does he drop his gentle grip on Morse’s jaw.

“Alright?” he asks, eyes watchful.

The back of Morse’s head feels cold and damp, but he’s able to move his thoughts past it, and past the horror of what it represented. He nods, and Thursday loosens and sits back. The movement brings Morse to realise that, completely reflexively, he’s fisted his hand in Thursday’s sleeve. He lets go and pulls away self-consciously. “Sorry,” he mutters.

“You don’t have to apologize,” says Thursday, evenly. “Not for that, not for anything. You were faced with something truly terrible, but you kept your head, kept yourself safe, and managed to get out of there. Not many men could have managed that, Morse. You showed real courage and resourcefulness; that’s what I saw then, and it’s what I see now.”

Morse draws back, flushing under the unexpected stream of praise. “You don’t know what he wanted from me,” he replies, looking away. 

“Do you want to tell me?” asks Thursday, steadily. Morse blinks, thrown off-guard, and looks back to him; Thursday gives him a tired kind of smile. 

“Gull was a lunatic, Morse. The worst kind – one who tried to drag us down after him. As far as I’m concerned, whatever he thought, whatever he said matters only as much as it affects you. It has no greater truth or value. If you want to tell me, then do. But don’t do it because you think it means something, because you think it reflects on you. It doesn’t.”

Morse sits thinking for a moment, rubbing his thumb absently along the rough edge of the gauze bandage covering his right foot. 

“I think he was mad,” he says eventually, words slow and thoughtful. “But even a madman doesn’t want to believe himself to be alone.” He pauses and then, looking Thursday in the eye, realises that he can say without doubt: “He was wrong.”

Thursday clasps Morse’s shoulder, fingers still cool from the flannel. “Yes. He was.”

Morse realises suddenly that he’s relaxed forward out of the corner, and that he can no longer hear his heartbeat in his ears. The cold sweat, too, has disappeared, leaving him feeling more comfortable in his skin.

Thursday releases his shoulder and rests his arms on his knees. “Feeling up to a change of scenery?” Morse glances at the bathroom walls, then back at Thursday and nods, managing just the edge of a smile. Thursday returns it and stands, using the sink counter to help himself up and then reaching down for Morse.

“There’s just one thing, sir,” Morse says, as Thursday steadies him against the rush of light-headedness that comes with standing. “How did you find me, in the end?”

“I remembered Gull shouting at you on the roof of Alfredo’s college, which is where we should have started in the first place. ‘I read your file; I know who you couldn’t save.’ Your lodging sheet was missing from your file. That, with his clue, tied it all up neatly.”

Morse frowns, tugging at his ear. “How do you mean?”

“Well, Rosalind Stromming,” Thursday says, with the gentle tone of someone talking to a man a few steps behind the conversation.

Morse pauses at the door and suddenly gives a real, albeit wry, smile. Thursday glances at him, confused: “What?” 

“Nothing – just that Gull wasn’t as good a psychiatrist as he thought himself to be.” At Thursday’s puzzled look, he continues, “Rosalind Stromming wasn’t the person I couldn’t save, sir. I’m sure you solved Gull’s puzzle correctly. But you were both wrong.”

Thursday frowns, clearly lost. “Then who was?”

“I think,” says Morse, opening the door to the sound of Win Thursday coming up the stairs, “that I’d rather not say, sir. It didn’t matter then, and it doesn’t really now.”

Win glances at him, then at Thursday behind him with a question in her eyes as she comes around the corner with a steaming mug in her hands. But whatever she sees in her husband’s face must reassure her; the question disappears, and she looks back to him with a warm smile. “Feeling a bit better, love?” 

He nods once, stepping out into the openness of the hall with only the barest twinge of insecurity, and turns to catch Thursday in his gaze as well. The inspector raises his eyebrows, and Morse twitches the corner of his mouth upwards. 

“Yes, thanks. I think I’m starting to.”

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, and hope you enjoyed.


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